


Tweens and Satyrs, Part II

by HiddenKitty



Series: In which the Dwarves are Satyrs, because Reasons [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Cultural Differences, M/M, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, satyrs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6913990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenKitty/pseuds/HiddenKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I split this off into its own fic because things should (if the boys co-operate) be getting somewhat steamier from here on.   For once, I don't know how many chapters it will take, but bear with me...</p><p>There's still really very little plot to this, and lots and lots of tooth-rotting fluff, but the main difference is that the Dwarves are now Satyrs.  Most other things are the same... including Bilbo and Thorin being Dorks in Love.</p><p>I am indebted forever to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/rutobuka">ruto</a> for her amazing art and for prompting this whole spiral of madness!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Respectable Gentlehobbit

**Author's Note:**

> Time passes, but Thorin made a promise, after all...
> 
> My eternal thanks to [Hsavinien](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien) for her beta-ing.

The snow was beginning to melt at last, but the effects of what would come to be called the Fell Winter still lay heavily upon the Shire. Bilbo could hardly recall the last time he had been properly warm and well-fed. The past few months had seen the deaths of Bilbo’s great-aunt Lily and his great-uncles Largo and Ponto, all on his father’s side of the family, leaving Bungo quite suddenly the Patriarch of the Baggins family. Under the strain of funeral arrangements, new responsibilities, and hard times for his family and tenants alike, it was hardly surprising that he had fallen ill. 

It had begun just after Yule. All of them had a cough at that point, and at first Bilbo’s father had insisted his loss of appetite was merely the result of overindulging the week before. Then he had begun to run a fever, and grow breathless even when resting, until one morning he coughed up blood and could not rise from his bed.

Mama had sent Bilbo to fetch Goody Salvia, who listened to the rattling of Bungo’s breath, counted his heartbeats, and confidently declared he would not die. Goody Salvia had been healing folk in the Shire since before Bilbo was born, Mama said, so her words could be trusted. Bilbo’s father was to be confined to bed and given plenty of boiled water with honey until his cough had gone, and with luck would make a full recovery. All the same, Bilbo could wish it could all happen a little faster.

It was only rather frightening, not just the sight of his father lying abed, pale and drawn, the quilt that lay over him barely disturbed by his shallow breathing, nor even Mama’s fretful anxiety. With the previous generation of Bagginses all gone barring Aunt Pansy, who lived far away in the East Farthing, it was hard for Bilbo to shake the feeling that his father might be next.

Sometimes he suspected his mother had the same feeling. A little crease sat between her eyebrows that he had rarely seen before, but now was a permanent fixture. Bilbo quietly ate his porridge - thin, miserable stuff made with water instead of cream - and regarded his mother as she stirred the large pot of broth on the stove. 

“That smells good,” he offered.

His Mama blinked, as if she had been lost in thought, and smiled at him. “I should think it smells much the same as it has this past month. I threw another handful of barley in yesterday, perhaps that’s it.” She sighed, tapping the drips from the wooden spoon against the rim, and set it aside to sit with Bilbo at the table.

“It’s excellent soup though,” said Bilbo stoutly. “Good for what ails you, Father says.”

Mama laughed, a little wry. “Well, that’s what I’m hoping.”

“While there’s life, there’s hope,” said Bilbo. “That’s another of his.”

“Very true,” agreed Mama, smiling more as if she meant it. A shaft of sunshine pierced the window, laying a curve of golden light across the table, and she reached over to ruffle Bilbo’s hair. “And Spring is finally on its way. I saw a snowdrop yesterday by the woodstore. That has to help, doesn’t it? Why don’t you go and visit your friend Thorin? It’ll do you good to get outside, and you haven’t been to see him in months.”

Bilbo stared down at his half-empty bowl, his appetite suddenly lost. The little fire in the kitchen hearth popped and crackled in the silence. Besides his parents’ bedroom, the kitchen was the warmest room in Bag End, and they had come to spend most of their time there, abandoning the Parlour entirely to save on fuel.

“Um,” said Bilbo. “He’s gone. There were portents, and wolves, and things, and he said it was time for the Satyrs to leave the Shire, all of them.”

“Gone?” 

“It’s all right,” said Bilbo hurriedly, still frowning at his second breakfast. “They’re coming back. I mean, not soon, probably, but Thorin promised. He’s coming back.”

A drip landed on his spoon, and it took a moment to realise it was a tear. Then Mama’s arms were around him, wrapping her shawl about them both and cuddling him close, warm and familiar. She smelled of the rosemary rinse she used for her hair and the old waistcoat she wore was soft under his cheek.

“My darling,” she murmured. “Why didn’t you say?”

“Well, there was Yule, and then Father fell poorly, and everything else. I didn’t want to worry you,” said Bilbo. He sniffed back another tear. “I miss him.”

“Of course you do,” said Mama sadly, stroking his hair gently. “Oh, my poor baby. My poor Bilbo.”

Bilbo thought of the two treasured kisses from the night Thorin had left. Replaying them in his mind, he could never be quite certain whether Thorin had seemed surprised or not, or whether the Satyr even knew that kisses on the mouth meant love. He should have asked. He realised now that it was always best to be perfectly clear about such things. Often he lay awake at night, alternately trying to convince himself it had meant nothing, or everything, and fell asleep to very confusing dreams.

He dreamed once of Thorin roasting meat over a fire in an unfamiliar cave, looking leaner and sadder than in Bilbo’s memories, although there was no way of knowing if that was true or not. A few nights later Thorin appeared smoking a pipe, which was clearly the invention of Bilbo’s sleeping imagination. On waking, he found it best to put such images out of his mind. Thorin would return, he had promised, and it was no good watching a pot to make it boil.

By Overlithe, Bilbo’s father had recovered enough to attend that year’s celebrations, though with the help of a walking-cane procured by Bilbo’s mama. The illness had turned his sandy hair entirely silver, but Mama declared him wonderfully distinguished-looking and kissed him soundly, for so long that Bilbo silently excused himself from the room. 

They were all attired for Overlithe in the fanciest of new clothes, since Mama had soothed her nerves over the winter with embroidery and Bilbo with his knitting, and as they approached the Party Tree Bilbo noticed they had evidently not been the only ones. He could not recall ever seeing their neighbours decked in such finery before. It was probably for the best, since the celebrations were rather more subdued than usual, with a good deal less food and ale and no-one really in the mood for much dancing. The Baggins family returned home before midnight, and the most cheerful gossip from the whole evening was only young Rorimac Brandybuck falling headfirst into a full barrel of beer.

A week later Aunt Mira gave birth to her fourth child, declaring the early delivery due to the shock of Rory’s accident. She named him Dinodas, which Bilbo’s father insisted with great glee was a name she had made up entirely. 

Autumn came and went with no news of any Satyrs in the area, and the harvests, though thin from lack of last year’s seed, were brought in successfully enough to ensure a merrier winter. Just after Yule, Adalgrim Took reached his majority and immediately married the eldest Cotton girl, despite the difference in their families’ situations, and within a remarkably short time it was announced that she was carrying their first child. 

In short, life in the Shire was returning to normal, and with new marriages and faunts and suchlike the past comings and goings of Satyrs in Bag End became such old news that it had quite been forgotten by most. Bilbo still dreamed of Thorin, in vivid detail, but it sometimes seemed that was all the Satyrs of Bindbale Woods had ever been. Just a dream.

\--

One gloriously sunny afternoon a good while later, Bilbo sat in the shade of a barberry bush, taking a short rest from gardening. His mother had set him to digging out ash saplings from the flowerbeds of Bag End, and he had been doing so using all the rudest and most vile language he knew.

All under his breath, of course. Having reached his mid-tweens, he was widely considered a respectable, sensible young Hobbit who mostly took after his respectable, sensible father. Any dimly-recalled wild proclivities of his youth were dismissed as the sort of thing all faunts could get up to. It was true that he was not a particularly gregarious sort, but always polite, well dressed and, all in all, a very proper Gentlehobbit. 

Bilbo drained the last of his slightly warm mug of water, fished out the soggy cucumber slices, and ate them contemplatively. There was no putting it off any longer, and he set to his task afresh with trowel and fork. His waistcoat and jacket he had hung over the fence some time before, and by now his shirtsleeves had been rolled up, his collar opened, and his ascot tossed to the ground. He knelt back down beside the bed of snapdragons and angelonias, vowing not for the first time that should he ever become master of Bag End, he would employ a Gardener. 

Until then, it would have to be Bilbo’s duty. His father was as recovered as he was ever likely to be, but not strong enough for the work Bag End’s gardens entailed. Formally employing a Gardener would be a rather cruel reminder of that fact.

“But Bilbo, you’re so good at weeding!” his mother wheedled, whenever Bilbo complained. “You can kill practically anything, after all.”

At present Bilbo rather wished that were true. His mother had warned him to dig out the spindly shoots of ash as carefully as any dandelion, but it had just seemed so much simpler to cut them off as they appeared. It was only after several years of such treatment that his mother had spotted a certain lumpy resistance to the earth beneath her planting arrangements and now Bilbo was paying the price. The thick, complex root system that had spread underground was extremely unwilling to be removed. 

It was however true that he was not the most green-fingered of his kind, unlike his parents. Nor did he particularly enjoy getting himself caked in mud, wriggling his fingers down through the dirt to find where the roots had run to, stubbornly anchored deep in the earth and always twisting away in the most awkward directions. Before long he found himself wrestling again with a stubborn gnarl of ash-root, wrapping both hands around it and scrambling to his feet, hauling back against it with his full weight.

“Scrawny - tupping - cockstand!” he swore, tugging as hard as he could on each word. With a sudden crack, the root broke off entirely, leaving its remainder in the ground and Bilbo landing heavily on his backside in a shower of dirt.

“Ohh, you rotten...!” he began, and then stopped. Someone was giggling.

Bilbo jumped to his feet, glaring around himself until his eye fell upon Delphinia Burrowes, one of his Aunt Mira’s nieces and only a year or so older than Bilbo. She stood in the lane below, twirling her parasol and waving up at him. At first she looked dressed for a party, in a pretty frock and embroidered apron, with a posy of flowers pinned to her bodice, but there was a shopping basket over her arm and a coin purse at her waist, so perhaps not.

“What a wonderful sight,” she said, beaming at him. 

Bilbo looked in confusion at the battlefield that was the corner of the garden where he stood. Chunks of roots and savaged saplings were strewn wildly about a lawn scattered with loose earth, and the few remaining blooms of angelonia were looking distinctly sorry for themselves at the disturbance.

“Well,” he said, at something of a loss. “Thank you. It’ll be a bit better once I’ve tidied up.”

“I suppose,” said Delphinia, simpering. “Though I rather like the view as it is. It’s such a warm day, and you’ve been working terribly hard, haven’t you, Bilbo? Really very... impressive.”

“It’s… I beg your pardon?” spluttered Bilbo. He had a sudden urge to clutch his shirt closed, and could feel an angry blush climbing his cheeks. 

“Well, l must be off. Errands to run, you know how it is. Good afternoon,” said Delphinia carelessly, pinching off a flower from her posy and tossing it up to where Bilbo stood as she walked away, leaving him sufficiently shocked that he almost forgot to answer in kind.

“Good afternoon,” he called after her, barely before she rounded the corner of the road. The flower lay still at his feet, and he stooped to pick it up. Morning Glories meant flirtation, of course, and Bilbo snorted, wondering how many of those Delphinia gave out on a daily basis. It was still in his hand when his mother appeared at the top of the steps, carrying a pitcher and two tall mugs on a tray.

“Was that Delphinia?” she asked innocently, and then her eye fell upon the flower. “Did she give you that?”

“She threw it at me, if that counts,” said Bilbo. Gratefully he reached for the fresh drink of cold water his mother bore. 

“Hmm,” said his mother thoughtfully. “She’s a nice girl. Pretty, too.”

“Her eyes point in different directions,” mumbled Bilbo, gulping down his water, and his mother frowned at him. “Anyway Sigismond’s a bit sweet on her, I think.”

“Oh,” sighed Bilbo’s mother. “Well, I suppose they do, a bit.”

Bilbo watched his mother sip her own drink with a somewhat melancholy air, and felt guilty. She worried, he knew, about his tendency to avoid any degree of attachment, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t done his best to overcome it. For a while he had stepped out with Bluebell Thatchreed, an amiable sort and an excellent listener, who could also play the recorder. She and Bilbo had spent happy afternoons several times setting his poems to music, and moreover she made excellent pastry. 

Then one day, they had been sitting beside Bywater pool and eating some of Bluebell’s very fine apple turnovers, and she had leaned over to kiss him on the mouth. 

Bilbo had recoiled as if bitten. 

It was fair to say Bluebell had been as confused by his reaction as Bilbo himself, but once both had spent a good twenty minutes apologising profusely to one another they had parted amicably enough, promising to at least remain friends. Shortly afterwards Wilibald Hebble began calling upon her, and made it very clear that he was not about to allow Bilbo to compromise his intended’s reputation. 

So Bilbo kept mostly to his own company and did not mind it so much. There had never really been anyone he particularly liked, or not in that way, except Thorin, and Thorin was long gone. One could only hang on to a childhood promise for so long, after all, and though deep down Bilbo could not quite give up hope, he knew well enough that not all promises can be kept. Life, and death, and all sorts of things might get in the way. It didn’t mean one had to settle for second-best.

Bilbo rubbed the back of his neck, and winced. He’d caught the sun, it seemed, and would need to put on some calamine lotion before bed.

“Mother,” he said slowly, and she looked surprised at his sombre tone. “I think I ought to tell you. I don’t think I shall get married, ever. I’m sorry if that’s a terrible disappointment.”

“My dearest Bilbo,” said his mother, “I’m not sure you need to be so certain. You’re only 25.”

“All the same,” he insisted. “I know an awful lot of folk my age are keen on someone or other, or thinking about faunts and settling down and the like. But I’m not, and I feel I ought to be honest with you about that. It just isn’t for me.”

Bilbo’s mother pursed her lips, as if choosing her words with care. “Your Uncle Isengrim has never married. It isn’t for everyone. You remember, however, his dear friend Reinhard who passed away last year? They shared a smial for more than 40 years, just the two of them. I think sometimes such arrangements can be just as happy as a marriage.”

It appeared she was deliberately missing Bilbo’s point. “I know my own mind, Mother,” he said crossly.

His mother raised her eyebrows, and looked as if she might be stifling a smile, which was hardly appropriate. “Very well,” she said gravely. “I shall bear that in mind.” 

Their drinks finished, Bilbo’s mother took the mug from his hand and set it back on the tray, fishing a little pair of herb scissors from her pocket. “Thyme for the dumplings,” she said, heading around towards the kitchen garden, and pointed at the decimated flowerbeds as she passed them. “Keep up the good work. By the way, you’ve got a great smear of mud on your nose.”

Scowling, Bilbo fished a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his face. The cloth came away almost black, and with a sigh he stuffed it back in his pocket as a hopeless business. His back ached and his hands were blistered, he was filthy as a pig and he yearned for a bath, a hearty meal, and a long, quiet smoke afterwards. Even if he gave up on digging for now, there was still all the mess to clear up.

He knelt down beside the beds again, groaning. His pipe was in the coat he had hung on the fence, its long stem protruding from under the pocketflap temptingly. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to pause a little longer, he thought, twiddling the handle of his trowel.

“Oh!”

Bilbo started guiltily, and dragged his gaze over to where his mother stood frozen on her way back indoors. Several sprigs of thyme dangled from her fingers, and she was staring at something further down the hill beyond Bilbo with eyes as round as saucers. 

“What is it?” asked Bilbo, about to sit back and look.

“Nothing!” cried his mother hurriedly, and then turned a very bright smile upon her son. “I simply had a rather marvellous thought. Now don’t you dare get distracted, you’ve plenty more to do yet. Stick at it!”

“What...” began Bilbo, and his mother brandished her sprig of herbs threateningly. 

“Bilbo Baggins, stick at it, I said!”

Gritting his teeth, Bilbo tugged his forelock at her and dug his trowel back in as his mother walked quickly back into the house. There was no gainsaying Mother. 

“A gardener. I bet Old Hobson would do it, and he only lives down the road,” he muttered, digging stubbornly along the line of the broken root. There was some satisfaction at least when he finally wrestled the last of the long tendril out of the ground, throwing it aside with a shout of victory.

“Mr Baggins?” said a voice from the lane, curiously deep and familiar.

“Master Baggins,” corrected Bilbo, pushing the sweaty hair out of his eyes wearily and turning at last. “My father’s inside.”

He was about to ask whether he could help the stranger with anything himself, but the question choked in his throat. It wasn’t a stranger after all.

It was Thorin.


	2. The Shores of Evendim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WTF IT'S A CHAPTER UPDATE?!
> 
> That said, I owe you all an apology: Bilbo isn't even in this chapter. I'm sorry! It grew, and got all plotty, and I can only hope you'll forgive me.
> 
> Thanks very much again to [HSavinien](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien) for their fantastic beta work - important suggestions were made and followed and I am inordinately grateful for them.
> 
> [eta] AHHH THERE IS RUTO ART for this chapter and the last!! And WOW it is good (it's always good). [Click here for Frís and Thorin, Bilbo and Bluebell, sad Bilbo being comforted, and Thorin and Frerin in Annúminas.](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/147858215379/some-illustrations-for-the-two-first-chapters)

It took a great deal longer than Thorin had anticipated to return to the Shire. 

To no-one’s great surprise, the decision to travel in the midst of Winter was not well-received by the Satyrs, and only Lóni’s loud, furious certainty could persuade them. He was the eldest of the Healers, and had declared their course to be North-West. “The Portents tell us to follow the Water,” he said. “It will take us to the mountains again, and our journey’s end.”

A river called The Water ran either side of Bindbale woods, but it was clear to all that they could not follow the Eastern tributary, or they would be walking into the open mouths of wolves. Directly West of their caves lay Rushock Bog, so at first the Satyrs set out North-West, towards the village the Hobbits called Needlehole. They skirted the edge of the woods for a few days until the smoke of chimneys came into view, then crossed open land to the frozen river. 

There were no trees along its banks here, and no protection from the weather as they walked. Past Yule, the days began to grow longer, though the snow crunching under their hooves was as thick as it had ever been, sticking to the fur of their haunches in claggy lumps, making each step heavier than the last.

Upon the river the ice lay inches deep and the fish were mostly hiding, buried into the mud of its bed. Meals of mouldering roots and withered grass began to make even the memory of boiled worms a longed-for delight. At night, the Satyrs huddled about their campfires and sang, the music interrupted by kids keening with exhaustion and hunger. Thorin grew slowly accustomed to a constant gnawing emptiness in his gut.

Still they trudged on. The water would lead them to the mountains, Lóni said, and did not hide his satisfaction as they moved North and the land about them grew rockier. It also became snowier, and colder, and bleaker. Amongst the white hills, the round Smial doors of Hobbit villages peeped out bright as jewels, though even those were growing fewer and further between.

It was Balin who spotted the small group of Hobbits one night approaching them in the dark, silent and cautious though they carried lanterns and pitchforks. He walked out alone to speak with them beyond the circle of the Satyrs’ camp, despite Thorin’s offer to join him. The conversation was not a long one.

“They mean us no harm,” explained Balin, on his return. “They only wished to ensure our intentions were equally peaceful. Our people have not been seen here before, they say.”

He glanced over at Thorin’s amad, who merely lifted her chin in acknowledgement. So Thrain had not passed this way, or at least, had not been seen to do so. Thorin poked the fire with a stick, and kept quiet.

“The village here is called Long Cleve,” said Balin, seating himself back down and stretching his hands out towards the flames. “We are near to the edge of the Shire, now. The fellow I spoke to told me there is nothing ahead but empty moors and the ruined cities of men.”

Lóni sat up, tugging his deerskin about him. “And hills,” he said.

Balin shrugged. “Emyn Uial, they are called. He said the river’s source is amongst them, a great lake called Evendim.”

“Ah! As the portents foretold, the water and the end of our journey.”

“You foretold mountains, not hills,” grumbled Óin. He sat at the same fireside as Thorin’s family, alongside his father Gróin and the other Healers, officially one of the seven now. He was the youngest of them, and yet the most likely to challenge Lóni’s pronouncements. Thorin could not help liking him for it.

“Young ones,” sniffed Lóni, and glanced up at the sky, where the moon sat full and fat amongst the stars. “It is a fortuitous night. Let me cast the runes.” 

A reading of the runes was not often performed, and all present crowded around as Lóni took them from the pouch at his waist and scattered them across the hard ground, speaking the chant in low tones. Only Healers were taught to read them, but Thorin leaned in alongside his amad nonetheless, willing the stones to tell them to go home, or at least go no further. From across the circle he heard Gróin tutting, and looked up anxiously.

“Clear enough,” said Gróin reluctantly. “If I doubted before, I can no longer. Seek counsel of the Old One, follow the water to the hill, and our journey will be done, it says. A child could read it, even one as hard-headed as mine.”

Óin huffed indignantly, but said nothing.

“Then we must press on, until we reach the lake,” sighed Thorin’s amad. None but Lóni looked pleased about it.

\--

The going was worse once they reached the foothills of Emyn Uial. Rockfalls blocked their way, and trees had grown, died, and been replaced by others in many places where the ancient road would once have been clear. The grip of winter was like iron, holding on longer into the year than any of them could remember.

Thorin could barely recall how it had felt not to be aching and tired in every limb. The slopes of pinewoods rose tall and bleak around them and the river was wider now, a roaring torrent. He could not help but miss the Shire, with its rolling slopes and babbling brooks. 

On a clear, cold day, weeks past seeing any signs of life, they scrambled their way down past a last hillock to see Lake Evendim at last spread out before them. 

Several of the Satyrs dropped their packs at once, crying out in delight and galloping forward to the water. Thorin’s back was glad at least, as he lowered his pack to the ground, though something in his chest sank sadly. It was real, and Lóni had been right, and this was where they were to live hereafter.

Beside him, Amad took a deep breath and smiled. “Taste it, Thorin,” she said. “The air is sweet. Fresh, mountain air.” 

Thorin breathed in deeply, and nodded. He could hardly begrudge her such a small joy, though to him it smelled the same as it had the past fortnight, heavy with cloying pine and little else. 

“Indeed,” agreed Lóni with satisfaction. “There will be stone and gems in these hills, I know it, maybe even metals. We will be crafters once more.”

The lake’s shores were wide and flat, running down in well-washed shingle to where the surface of the lake sparkled prettily in the sunlight. Behind them the hills rose sharply, up to craggier summits that were not mountains, not by any means, but steep enough to form a bowl about the lake that could not be seen beyond. Where their shadow lay upon the water, it turned inky black, so deep it seemed to have no bottom.

On the distant shore the tall ruins of a city poked through trees, like jagged teeth. It did not look a friendly place.

“Annúminas,” said Balin, when he noticed Thorin staring at it. “A city of men, I believe, although it has been abandoned these past two thousand years. I doubt there’s much to it now.”

“It may be worth scouting,” suggested Dwalin, plucking at the middle of his beard. It was a bad habit of his when thinking; Amad had said he would send his chin bald that way. “Safest to know as much as we can.”

“Aye, one day,” agreed Balin, slapping his young namad’s shoulder. “For now, we mostly need shelter and food.”

Food they had brought with them, enough for a while longer yet, but shelter posed a greater problem. For the rest of that day, they searched the shores and lower slopes, but no caves could be found. Before the light faded, Amad ordered Thorin and some others up the hills to fetch wood, so that they could at least build something temporary to sleep beneath. 

Óin was amongst those sent, and Thorin chased after him, scarf flapping. He had not yet had a chance to speak with the young Healer alone, and there was something he wanted to know. 

“When Lóni read the runes on our journey,” said Thorin, without preamble, and Óin looked at him in surprise. “Your father said you had both doubted. Why should you doubt the portents if they were so clear?”

Óin snorted, not slowing his pace. “Because they were not clear, not before then.”

Thorin climbed silently along after him, waiting. It was often the best way to find out more, and indeed, a few steps further on Óin sighed heavily, and began to speak again. 

“When we dwelt in Bindbale, it was hard to discover any message at all. We read the birds’ flight, and the runes, and chewed the leaf, and all I could ever make out was something about a hill and that we should seek counsel of an Old One. Since Irad died and I became the seventh of our Healers, Lóni is the eldest amongst us. It was he who said the water should be followed. I do not understand how, but he was right, for as you know the signs became unmistakable as soon as we began our journey. We followed the water to the hills, and here is our journey’s end. Now, Thorin, will you help me with this wood or not?”

Thorin was not sure what he had wanted to hear, but Óin’s words were not encouraging. How could Lóni have been so certain of what was so unclear to the other healers? It made no sense.

Thorin set his shoulder to the pine’s trunk beside Óin, and pushed. Creaking and screaming, the tree’s roots broke free of the earth and it toppled forward, long branches snapping off with rapid loud retorts as it rolled down the slope to where other Satyrs waited to take it to the shores. Under Thorin’s scrambling hooves the snow became slippery slush, and he sighed with irritation as the sharp pebbles beneath poked into the sore, worn pad of his hoof. They moved on to the next tree, all conversation ended.

\--

There was no metal in the hills, nor precious gems, nor even much stone of any sort. Despite months of careful searching up and down along the Southern shores of the Lake, they could find no caves large or sound enough for their needs. 

Constructing their own meant delving through the thick, sticky clay of the hillsides, shoring up walls with wooden props. It was a dirty, exhausting, and largely futile business. When they dug too deeply into the sodden earth the resulting rooms were stuffy, the air within becoming rapidly stale and fetid. Adding vents and chimneys left the heavy ceilings unstable and prone to collapse, and lighting larger fires to dry things out only led to cracked, dried clay crumbling onto their heads and more cave-ins, so that at length they were forced to keep their excavations more humble, barely more than shallow nooks along the sides of the hills.

It made for cold nights. Thorin helped to stack stone piles on which to build their fires, so that when it was time to sleep, each might take a heated stone wrapped in deerskin to keep them warm overnight. In Bindbale, it had been a method that worked well for winter nights. That year the weather did not begin to warm until Astron, and even then such stones were needed every night, and they were always cold by morning.

That year the weather did not warm until Astron, and the land was not so generous as in the Shire. The woods about the lake were almost wholly pine trees, whose needles had little nutrition and barely repaid the effort of chewing them. The pretty red spotted mushrooms that grew in such profusion underneath turned out to be disagreeable even to the stomachs of Satyrs, albeit not deadly. 

The lake, at least, was full of fish and that became the staple of their diet. It did not take many months for Thorin to loathe the sight of fish in any form.

When the snow began to fall again it took Thorin by surprise. A year had passed in trying to build this new home, and yet it felt they had accomplished very little. Amad promised that it was only hard for now. The portents could not have lead them wrong, after all.

\--

That Spring, Amad agreed to let a scouting party go forth to Annúminas at last, armed with knives and supplied with pouches to bring back any treasures. Thorin, Dwalin, Óin and Glóin all volunteered, keen to explore, or perhaps only to escape their drear, pokey shelters.

The Lake was large, and their route seemed to be alternately swampy or viciously steep, but by the second day it was clear they would reach the city before noon. The path beneath their feet joined the remains of a cobbled road, wide enough for an army to march over, now broken up by tree roots and long overrun with weeds. The pines began to thin out and be interspersed with trees Thorin remembered from the Shire, aspens and oaks, though they grew in twisted, unfamiliar shapes. An eerie quiet fell as they approached the city, as if the air was thickening under some ancient weight of magic, and though Thorin strained to listen, there was no sound of birdsong or animals about them as they walked. 

Ahead of them, ruined buildings began to emerge slowly from the trees. Empty windows peered at them like eyes. The pillars of the city gates were of Elven design, two tall carved warriors in white limestone that must have come from some far distant quarry. At some point over the centuries the figures’ faces had been crudely chiselled off, so that their stone helmets stared out as blank as ghosts. As one, their small company drew to a halt upon the threshold, held by an unspoken sense of dread. 

“This was a great city once,” said Balin quietly. He was the first to step forward, picking his way delicately through the rubble and weeds. 

Dwalin followed, and Thorin too. A few yards beyond the gate a stone skidded under his hoof and he started, making Dwalin chuckle. Thorin scowled down at the cobbles accusingly, then saw something that gave him pause.

Protruding from a patch of dirt was a small stone pipe, not dissimilar to the sort Men and Hobbits smoked, though with a squared bowl and a shorter stem. Thorin picked it up and turned it in his hands, tapping out the dirt and wiping it clean with his thumb, checking it for damage and finding none. Dwalin had gone on ahead, ducking down into some small, dark archway, so on a whim Thorin tidied the pipe into his pouch. He could leave it behind again if he needed the room.

He followed Dwalin, who was exploring a building nearby, one end of it roofless and crumbling, but still mostly whole at the other. Within it, lichen bloomed across pale bare walls and vines twined through the windows, set too high to be seen out of, and yet the place was silent, empty of skittering creatures or buzzing insects. Stone benches lined the walls, and the floor was elegantly tiled, but nothing else remained. 

They walked on through dim corridors past more grey, desolate rooms. Dwalin had begun to mutter at the unnatural feel of it all when they came at last to a side-chamber that might have been a guardroom, long ago. It lay around an unexpected corner, broken bands of metal lying across the entrance as if a door had fallen from its hinges. Scattered about the floor were spear-heads in various states of rust or repair. The wood of their shafts had mostly rotted away, though here and there a little survived, wedged into the sockets. 

Exclaiming in excitement, Dwalin seized one and began polishing the blade with the back of his arm. It could be sharpened once more, or the metal might be re-forged, and there were some amongst the Satyrs who would know how it was done. Their trip was not wasted, at least.

Thorin blinked, and turned suddenly. He could hear the faint, echoing sound of pebbles hitting stone and trotted onwards to explore. 

It was only Óin, who had found another secluded spot and was investigating the debris of an ancient chest. Like the spears in the guardhouse, little of it remained save the metal that had braced it, and the precious gems it had once held spilled across the floor in moss-covered piles. He lifted each one to the light, and either set them carefully down on an unfolded cloth, or tossed them over his shoulder. Thorin ducked as one flew past his ear and crouched down by Óin’s side, silently helping. 

“A good find,” said Thorin. He was no jeweller himself, having never needed to learn the skill, but he could see there were many good stones here, though all needed cutting and polishing. 

Óin grunted in agreement and sat back on his haunches, scratching behind a horn. “Not bad. A long time since we worked such fine materials, but the elders will not have forgotten the skill. Although we have no metal for setting them. Perhaps we might trade for some with the Hobbits, but they are not a people much given to ornament. Flower crowns, as I recall, not rings and jewelled collars...” he trailed off, looking more sad than angry.

“Yes,” said Thorin, and paused, struck by another thought. “What do the portents say now?”

“Who knows?” snorted Óin, taking up a dull ruby and flinging it against the wall. “Lóni will not cast the runes before us any more. The old fart tells us he is the Old One who was foretold, and we must trust in him and the portents, for all they have brought us to a place determined to thwart our every need. There are so few bloody birds I cannot read their flight with any confidence, and we have no raktmajâd.”

“Why not?” asked Thorin in surprise. Amongst their many lacks, he had not noticed this one.

“It does not grow here, or at least, not anywhere we can find,” grumbled Oin. “And all I brought with us is as dry as dust. I have tried to dampen it, but the portion I tried that upon is mouldered now, so here is no use for it.”

“Yes,” said Thorin. He thought of the little stone pipe in his pouch. “If the raktmajâd is dried, can it not be used?”

“Not in healing, no. The Hobbits and Men smoke it in pipes, I believe, but we have no use for it.”

Thorin nodded. “I would have your old leaf, if you no longer need it,” he said rapidly, before he could think better of it. “If I may.”

Óin eyed him curiously. “Of course, Thorin. It’s yours.”

\--

The trip was brief, only a first foray, and within the week they had returned around the Lake with their findings: a few weapons, Óin’s pouch of gems, and their greatest discovery: dozens of tiny apples, misshapen and unripe, from an orchard on the city outskirts that had outgrown its confines and run wild.

Half were planted in a small patch of cleared ground, more in hope than expectation. They were no farmers, but the prospect of something to eat that was not fish, grass or pine needles cheered everyone. Amad looked relieved, and Thorin was glad to see it.

Most of the apples remaining were eaten that night, and it was the merriest Thorin could remember since their arrival at the lake. Sobur, one of their number skilled in such things, broke out the ale she had been brewing from the last crusts of their stale bread, dipped in honey and soaked in skins of lakewater. Its taste was rank and foul, and the Satyrs drank it as eagerly as the finest wine, singing and dancing until the sun began to rise.

Balin began to sing sagas, but as the aleskins were drained, it was not long before his voice was drowned out by others. Bifur, a black and white Satyr with a terrifying repertoire of scurrilous songs, led the chorus, roaring the words with joyous glee until they echoed over the lake’s waters.

Thorin’s harp had been abandoned by then, too quiet to be heard over the whistles and drums of the others, and he slipped away to a quiet corner, eager to try out his pipe with Óin’s gift of dried raktmajâd. It seemed a sensible time. The fires on the lake’s shore burned high and wild, and no-one would notice a little extra smoke, after all. 

It choked him for a few breaths before he found the taste was not so bad, better at least than the foul ale. Thorin blew out a plume against the cold night sky, watching it drift out over the dark lake. The scent was familiar and soothing, warming him from the inside. He leaned back against his rock, wriggling his haunches into the shingle until he reached something close enough to comfortable, and looked out at the stars, letting himself think of Bilbo for the first time in a long while. His friend might be looking at the same stars, though more likely he would be asleep in his warm bed. Thorin closed his eyes, lifting the end of his scarf to rub against his cheek, and could almost picture Bilbo beside him.

The loss of his friend was an ache that did not abate. He dreamed of Bilbo often, walking through the woods they had known, declaiming his poems or climbing the trees to pick fruit. Sometimes they were more akin to nightmares, and he would imagine Bilbo hand-in-hand with some Hobbit maid, or sitting beside a sunlit pool in Hobbiton as she kissed his mouth. They were only dreams, but they pricked at Thorin after he awoke. More than a year had already passed since they had left the woods. 

If the old city could supply them with gems, perhaps there truly was a life for the Satyrs here. They had been stoneworkers and jewellers once, long ago, before they were nomads. Thorin could carve well enough, but he had never learned to set stones for jewellery, since in Bindbale the land provided well enough that they did not need to trade. 

He had seen the delight on Amad’s face when she saw the treasures Óin had found. 

Still, Lake Evendim would never be Thorin’s home. He had made a promise, and he meant to keep it, even if he would have to bid his people farewell forever and return to the Shire alone. He imagined walking back up the hill to Bag End, and Bilbo waiting for him there. It was a pretty daydream.

Distantly he heard Amad calling for him and realised his pipe had gone out. She appeared around the boulder where he sat, a dark shape emerging from the red-gold of the bonfires behind them, the stones of the shore shifting under her hooves.

“There you are! I have something for you,” she said, smiling widely, as he had rarely seen. That was not the only thing strange about her, though it took Thorin a moment to realise.

She wore no jewels. Even in the dim light of stars and fires, Thorin could make out scars in the tawny velvet of her ears where heavy rings had hung long enough to pull the holes into dark lines. Instead, three out of the many she had once worn lay gleaming in her open hand, held out to him as a gift. 

“Will you wear these? You are grown, my Thorin, and I am so proud of you. Tomorrow I will show you at last how to make much grander ones, but it is long past time you wore something. This is our legacy, and you have given it back to us.”

Thorin stared at them. “These are yours,” he said, unable to understand. Perhaps the raktmajâd had thickened his head too much.

“They were,” she said.

Thorin frowned. “Will you make yourself new ones, then, with the gems we brought?”

Amad shook her head sadly, and how strange it was, for her do it without the click of her earrings knocking together softly. “Not for me,” she said. “If I am a widow, then I must grieve.”

They had spoken before, in the Shire, of Thorin’s missing father. Acknowledging that he was most likely dead had been no small factor in their reason to leave, and yet for Amad to put off all of her ornaments made it suddenly more real. 

Gingerly, he took the rings from her hand, looking at them carefully. The gold had been shaped into smooth, precise rings, then inscribed with geometric patterns and inlaid with delicate lines of simple jet. Hanging from the thickest point of each was a large stone set in elegant bezels framed in tiny gold beads. One was glassy blue Topaz, for care and courage, one was black Onyx for protection, and the last was of bright, shining Lapis, for the true line of Durin.

“It will hurt,” she warned, though she said it with a smile. “Come with me and I will burn the needle for you.”

Thorin closed his fist about the gift, and tucked his pipe quietly away behind the rock before following. 

With care, Amad laid the steel in the fire, turning it carefully in the hottest part of the flame until she was satisfied of its readiness. She pushed the hot needle through his ear so swiftly Thorin had no time to even wince at the pain, and threaded the golden rings through each hole, twisting their fastenings closed. Thorin flicked his ears experimentally. They were sore, true enough, and strangely heavy. The two in his left ear clicked together as they once had in Amad’s. It would take a while to grow used to, but he could not help being proud to wear them. 

The singing about the fireside had quietened now, as a whisper went through the Satyrs who noticed what was happening. At length it reached Frerin, who staggered to his feet a little unsteadily, as if he had been stealing sips of ale.

“Thorin’s got earrings!” cried Frerin, mouth agape in outrage. “Amad, do I get some too?”

“If you become the Second to my Lead, perhaps,” said Amad sharply. “But please, do not wish for that.”

Thorin frowned to himself, watching Frerin notice his mother’s undecorated ears and the implication sinking in. He was now to be the chief male of Amad’s family, and his word would be second only to hers. In truth, perhaps it had been for a while, but making such a thing official was bound to cause some changes. Across the fire he caught a glimpse of Lóni’s furious expression, rendered almost demonic in the flickering flames. 

With a sudden lurching of his heart it came to him that he could not now strike out alone back to the Shire. He could not even ask it. Not only his family but also his people would have need of him. 

Duty bound him to his people now, and his people lived here. 

\--

Of the apples they planted, no more than a handful ever sprouted, and none ever bore fruit. They grazed heavily upon the pines, and those nearest their settlement looked more spindly and unwell with each passing year. For all Thorin’s scavenging in the abandoned city, for all his people’s work and fortitude, their home was a hard one, and seemed to grow no easier. Even Lóni grew once again as ill-tempered as before, arguing with Amad over every decision she took, however small. 

The trips to Annúminas were put under Thorin’s command, and it was always a relief to be away from the settlement, even if the ruined city felt unwelcoming in its own, different way. For the last foray of the year Amad had given permission for Frerin and Bifur’s young cousin Bofur to join them. It was Leaf-Fall already, and several of the older Satyrs who would normally have gone with them were too affected to make the journey. 

The young ones were excited, scampering through the trees in giddy leaps and bounds, arguing endlessly about the jewels Bofur would find and the knives and weapons Frerin hoped to bring back. Thorin and Bifur exchanged amused looks, and something in Thorin’s chest swelled a little. Bifur was long since grown and a fine warrior, and it was good to feel as if he considered Thorin an equal.

On the second morning out the weather turned upon them, cloudy skies darkening into blustery rain squalls that blew directly into their faces. It took longer than usual to reach the city’s gates, and Thorin ordered camp to be made within the walls for shelter’s sake. 

The building near the gate with its stone benches allowed them to sleep off the ground, away from the streams of rainwater that ran over the uneven stone. On earlier visits they had stacked wood in a corner so that it would be dry for times just like this one, and a fire was soon lit in the centre of the room that roared with welcome warmth. Bofur clapped his cousin on the shoulder, calling for a song before bed, but even Bifur’s strong voice sounded thin in that place, and before long Thorin called the watch. He would take the first, then Frerin, then Dwalin, then Bofur, and Bifur last. With luck, that would give the youngest enough rest.

Thorin stared into the fire as the sounds of breathing around him slowed and turned into snores. Outside the room the storm grew wilder, thunder rolling in the distance, and Thorin sighed. The year was turning once again, and soon it would be winter. The Shire seemed very distant now. 

He packed a thumbful of dried raktmajâd into his pipe and lit it with the ease of practice. There was so little of the stuff left now, he saved it only for moments like this, when he knew he could enjoy it undisturbed. The smoke still calmed him, though the flavour was no longer as full as it had been. He wondered whether he might persuade Amad to let him ask their traders to get him some more, when it was all gone. It seemed unlikely. 

His pipe finished, Thorin shook his brother awake. “Your turn,” he said, and Frerin nodded, yawning. “Wake me if you need me, understand?” 

With the long journey in his muscles and the pipesmoke soothing his blood, Thorin was asleep in moments. 

\--

He could not tell why he woke again so soon. It was still dark, and the hissing sound of rain continued outside, a curtain of white noise about the tiny room where they slept. Frerin sat slumped and dozing beside the fire, or rather the glowing embers of its remains, almost buried in ash. Thorin reached out to throw piece of wood on top before it died completely. He breathed in as he stretched, and a wave of revulsion crashed over him. 

There was a filthy, fetid stench in the place, the like of which he had never encountered before. He scrambled upright at once, shaking his brother’s shoulder, and Frerin blinked as he roused from sleep, looking up at his brother in startled shame.

The rest of their party was stirring now, awakened by the stink and their movement, grasping weapons instinctively. Thorin grabbed the rusted socket of an old spear-head, not heavy, but sharp enough to serve as a knife.

“Something is coming,” growled Thorin, as low as he could, and lifted a hand for peace as Dwalin hefted his axe with meaningful force. “Make for the gate, quickly.”

“Will we not fight?” asked Frerin, wide eyes glinting in the darkness.

“We cannot know if we are a match for them.” Whatever was out there, it stank like evil incarnate, and though Thorin was no coward, he did not wish to put his brother in its way, nor Bifur’s young cousin. Dwalin’s hand landed upon Frerin’s shoulder as he looked about to protest, and shoved him towards the archway, into the night.

Thunder rolled above them. That and the rain covered the click of their hooves on the stone, but also the approach of their enemy, though Thorin’s ears were pricked to any unfamiliar sound. It was slippery underfoot, and they stole cautiously between the ruined buildings, keeping watch for signs of movement through the shroud of rain and darkness. All the while, that fetid odour about them drew stronger and closer. 

The great broken gate emerged through the downfall as they crept closer, towering more black than the darkness about it. Lightning flashed over the stone, and in one horrified instant, Thorin saw them. 

Orcs, at least a dozen of them, armoured and bearing weapons, slinking through the streets, scenting the air as if hunting. The night closed back in after the flash and Thorin could only hope they had not been spotted yet.

“Run,” he said, and was obeyed without hesitation. They broke as one into a gallop, as if safety might lie upon the other side of the gate, and a terrible howling rose in the air, louder than the storm, as the Orcs gave chase.

Under the trees, running was easier. The uneven ground was familiar to the Satyrs, and terrain better suited to them. Within seconds, the Orcs’ shrieking sounded fainter and Thorin dared to glance about himself, making certain all their party were together. There was Frerin, and there was Dwalin, and Bifur, who slowed to a stop as Thorin watched, turning back in a scramble of mud.

Bofur exploded through the bushes behind them, not pausing in his panicked gallop, his eyes so wide the whites were a circle about his brown irises. Bifur and Thorin nodded to one another in relief and began to run once more. The Orcs had not given up, and would be gaining upon them fast. 

A scream, loud and long, ripped the air. 

Frerin had paused too, seeing his brother wait for Bofur, and an Orc had caught him. Through the trees and falling rain Thorin turned to see the monster holding his namad aloft by his hair. Blood pulsed freely from a long wound in Frerin’s leg, black in the dim light against his tawny fur, matting already in the heavy rain. The long black blade of the Orc’s weapon was tickling at his belly, and it spoke in some kind of mocking, guttural language, its eyes bulging and head on one side consideringly. 

There was no way Thorin could reach them in time. With a desperate roar Thorin flung the spear-head he carried and it flew through the air, turning end over end until it struck the Orc below its eye, startling the creature into dropping Frerin, who collapsed to the ground. Thorin galloped, weaponless, barrelling into the monster with all his strength. 

They crashed together against a tree, the Orc screaming in fury, its breath vile in Thorin’s face. He felt the movement of its arm drawing back and flung himself sideways before it could move to stab him, scrambling behind the tree’s trunk like a child’s game of tag. Above his head a broad, strong branch grew, and Thorin leapt to grab it with both hands, bracing his hooves against the rough bark and wrenching the limb from the tree with all his strength.

He swung it around, catching the Orc’s blade in the wood and hauling it from the monster’s grasp. It drew another, and Thorin instinctively lifted the branch again, grasping it such that it would protect the flesh of his arm, deflecting the blow as he ran back to Frerin’s side. The rest of their group had turned now too, Dwalin snarling with fury as he swung his axe, striking the Orcs’ limbs from their bodies in sprays of black blood, and Bifur with his sharp stone knife bellowing at his cousin to stay back, to no avail. Little Bofur ducked nimbly between the creatures, savagely stabbing at their heels and legs, always skipping out of reach before he could be struck. 

The Orc attacking Thorin and Frerin was larger than the others, the armour upon his shoulders decorated with studs and crudely set with tall, vicious spikes. His sword’s blade was buried too deeply into the wood to be retrieved, and with his remaining knife he slashed over and under the branch to try to reach Thorin and his brother. Thorin kicked out as the Orc reached upwards and drove forward with his makeshift shield, pushing the creature backwards into the dirt.

Staggering back, the Orc reached out, grasping the wet tails of Thorins’ scarf. It pulled, and suddenly Thorin could not catch his breath. The Orc’s eyes lit up with malicious glee and it pulled again, tighter. Black spots clouded Thorin’s vision, and he twisted frantically, rolling his head in a circle and unwinding the scarf from his neck as best he could. It caught against his horns, but he was no longer choking. 

The Orc looked confused, tugging hard on the scarf, pulling their heads closer together. Thorin took one deep breath, and brought his forehead down hard against the Orc’s.

It smashed like an eggshell. Stinging black blood splashed into Thorin’s eyes, and he battered his horns against the dead Orc again, tossing wet chunks of the creature’s brain and eyes back over his shoulder. He staggered upright once more, and saw another of the beasts coming towards him. Thorin lifted his wooden shield, lowered his head, and charged. The fight had taken him now, and he no longer thought of anything but to kill. With rage-fuelled strength, his horns ripped open the Orc’s chest, and he seized the sword it had held to slash savagely across its throat. Another appeared behind him, weapon raised, and Thorin wheeled about, hacking clean through its bony arm as it gargled a scream of pain.

Of the dozen or so Orcs who had attacked them, none survived. It was no more than minutes before Thorin stared about himself, checking for remaining Orcs, and could see not one still standing. Before he could feel glad there was a shout from beside him and he lifted the stolen sword once more. Bofur stood, trembling, staring at his cousin, who lay twitching on the ground, eyes rolling back in his head. 

Dwalin stumbled over to his side and swore. In Bifur’s forehead was lodged a large Orc axe-head. 

“Bifur?” asked Thorin, dropping his sword to catch Bifur’s hands in his own. “Bifur, can you hear me?”

Blinking, Bifur’s gaze seemed to focus on Thorin, and his spasms were already lessening. He nodded and Thorin could have wept with relief. 

“Dwalin, make him comfortable if you can. See if he can move. I must see to Frerin,” said Thorin, turning at once to where his brother lay.

Frerin looked very small in the dark and rain, curled up in a ball with his injured leg sticking out at a sickening angle, crumpled and bent all wrong. The wound still pulsed with blood, and Thorin cursed to himself, emptying out his leather pouch for something to tie off the limb. Frerin’s skin was pale and his breathing shallow.

“Thorin?” he said, barely audible above the falling rain. His eyes fluttered open. “I’m sorry, Thorin.”

“Hush,” said Thorin. He ripped the leg from a deerskin, tying it tightly high on Frerin’s flank, above the stifle. His brother winced, letting out a quiet huff of pain. “I am sorry. I should not have let them hurt you.”

“I fell asleep,” said Frerin. His voice wobbled as if he might be crying, but in the rain it was impossible to tell.

Thorin should not have given him the watch. He should not have agreed to letting Frerin join them. “It was not your fault,” said Thorin, trying hard to keep his voice gentle, and hoisted Frerin onto his shoulder before his brother could protest further. 

His whole body felt like a bruise. It was still late and the sun would not rise for hours yet, but they could not risk waiting for daylight. “We must go,” he called, and saw the others heading towards him, Dwalin and Bofur supporting Bifur’s shoulders as the older Satyr walked forward with trembling steps. 

\--

Dwalin was sent ahead that night when they made camp, so that the Healers might set out to meet them. Before dawn they arrived, sweeping the injured away on stretchers, and by the time Thorin was back at the camp Frerin’s leg had been set and he had been given a sleeping draught. The injury was severe, and with it came fever, but by the grace of his youth and strength it quickly broke and within a week he was able to sit up and speak once again. Recovery would be long and slow from such an injury, and the Healers all agreed that he would never fully regain the strength of his leg. 

Bifur’s injury was less clear. After some time, it was decided not to remove the axe that split his forehead for fear of doing yet more damage. He could move, and slowly his speech returned, but he was undoubtedly changed. Always Bifur had led the songs about their fireside, teaching the words to young Bofur and laughing loudest of all at the bawdy ones. Now, he sat silent, his eyes wide and staring, and whittled at sticks alone.

Both were alive, however, and that was what counted. So Amad told Thorin, and yet Thorin could not help but wonder if he might have done more. Could he have reached the Orc sooner? Or swung with more care? His amad cuffed his head and scolded him for such thoughts, but they were difficult to shake. He argued at least to be allowed to return to the place where they had been attacked and scout the area for clues, and reluctantly permission was granted. He set off with only Dwalin at his side, and with grim haste it took them only one day and night to find the glade where they had left the Orcs’ bodies to rot. 

The rain had been heavy since they had last looked on it, and the stench of decay rose high in the cool, damp air. It seemed at first that no others had disturbed the place since they had made their escape. The dead Orcs lay where they had fallen, scarcely more ugly than they had been in life. Perhaps their eyes bulged more now, and their skin was more mottled, falling away in flaking blisters when touched to reveal the crawling, blackened flesh beneath. Dwalin kicked at a few bodies contemptuously, watching them fall further apart, until the bloated belly of one burst with a thick sound of popping, throwing out a wet cloud of filth. 

The noise was loud in the silent, dripping forest, but louder still was Dwalin’s shout of of horror. He bounced away at once, turning mid-air to sprint towards the Lake shore, where he waded in to his waist and plunged his head under. Thorin could not help laughing. It felt a long, long time since last he had.

“About time you bathed,” he called, turning over the remaining dismembered limbs and bodies with a hoof, rather more carefully than before.

“I’ll dunk your fucking head in that carcass,” snarled Dwalin, resurfacing with handfuls of the lake’s bed to scrub the spray of black muck from his shoulders. 

Thorin did not bother to respond, noticing instead something strange. No Orcish weapons lay upon the ground, although all had been armed when they fought. Nor had the bodies anything of value upon them, although in the darkness Thorin had not noticed them carrying anything much. All the same, he remembered the one who had caught Frerin, and picked his way carefully over to where that body lay, its face reduced to shards of bone and a greying mush that crawled with maggots.

The Orc had worn decorated, heavily spiked shoulder-armour, but it was not there now. What did remain, spread out beneath the corpse like a bedroll, was a wrinkled bluish piece of knitting. Thorin looked, his heart falling as he recognised it.

The scarf was a sodden thing, stained with blood, mud and the oozing putrefaction of a dead Orc that had lain atop it for several days. It had been cut in several places and torn in others, so that there was evidently no saving it.

Thorin knelt down. Whilst Dwalin was taking his overdue bath, he would not see Thorin here, blinking tears from his eyes as he touched his ruined gift. He pulled at one fraying stitch, unravelling it easily in a crinkled string as long as his arm, and regarded it for a moment before breaking the yarn off. He would keep that much of it, at least, he thought, tucking it into his pouch. The Orcs would not have it all.

A few acorns lay scattered under the tree, and on a whim, Thorin took one of those as well before he stood to find Dwalin. Over his head, the pale splintered wood of the branch he had broken off to defend himself was already beginning to turn green with lichen. Thorin reached up to lay a hand on the tree’s bark, silently thanking it for saving his life, and his brother’s.

“No weapons,” said Dwalin gruffly, pushing his wet hair back behind his horns as he approached. Plastered against his head it was clearly beginning to thin at the top, and his shoulders gleamed pink with scrubbing, but Thorin could summon no humour for the sight any more. “Someone or something’s had all the metal from these. Taken a limb or two for rations as well, or else there’s some giant fucking mice about.”

“Men?” suggested Thorin, though privately he did not think so.

Dwalin snorted. “Even Men would have burned the bodies, not left them like this. And they don’t eat Orcs. I smell no trace of Men here.”

“Orcs then,” said Thorin, nodding. It matched. Only Orcs would look upon their dead comrades and see nothing but dead meat to be looted and abandoned, or eaten. Which meant there were more of them, and they now knew they had enemies in the area. 

\--

On their return, they found the settlement in uproar. Brawls were not uncommon this late into Leaf-Fall, and often there would be a crowd of spectators, but this one seemed to have drawn everyone’s attention. On the widest part of the lake shore a throng of Satyrs stood clustered, and raised voices could be heard as Dwalin and Thorin drew near.

At the centre of matters stood Lóni, fists clenched and face scarlet, facing Amad and both Thorin’s siblings. Amad stood with her eyes closed, as if she had reached the limits of her anger and exhaustion, and beside her was Frerin, his leg still strapped in bandages and a crutch wedged beneath his arm. To Thorin’s knowledge his namad had not been given leave to rise from his bed, but despite Dís’s attempts to placate him he was yelling the vilest insults at Lóni, though he looked distinctly tired and unsteady.

As Frerin drew breath, Lóni spoke. “My argument is with you, Lady Frís. I will not stand to be disrespected by this upstart kid,” he sniffed, but his voice trembled with anger.

“Stand?” shouted Frerin, swaying on his crutch. “You stand for nothing but to gainsay Amad! Always seeking to undermine her words, you stinking turd!”

“Insolent buck!” snapped Lóni, lowering his head a moment as if tempted to charge.

“Old fart!” Frerin began, just as Amad’s eyes opened and she noticed Thorin shouldering his way through the watching crowd. She held up her hand to silence Frerin, who obeyed her at once. 

With everyone’s eyes upon him, Thorin crossed the circle to where she stood, glad to have all assembled when he gave this news. He set his forehead briefly to hers in greeting, then spoke for all to hear. 

“There are more Orcs than those that attacked us in Annúminas. They had looted the bodies of their slain and they must now know they have enemies in these hills.”

A flicker of horror crossed Amad’s expression, swiftly quelled as she absorbed the information. 

“They have not found us yet. This late in the year we may be safe, but come Spring, should they begin to seek us out, we will be found before long, and we cannot defend ourselves.” She paused, and heaved a sigh. When she spoke again it was more quietly, as if only to Thorin. “Surely we are not meant to flee our home again?”

“Is this our home, Amad?” he asked, his voice equally low. 

“How dare you,” spat Lóni, overhearing. “This place was ordained for us, by the portents, we must not simply abandon it! This is our journey’s end!”

Thorin turned, his own temper beginning to flare. “In the Shire, you had us leave before the wolves could find us. You would have us run from wolves but hold our ground against Orcs?”

“Another willful child! Am I not the Old One foretold by the portents? I have led you to this place and I say we will not leave!” shrieked Lóni, close to hysterical.

Amad raised her head suddenly, eyes glittering, and her horns were curved and sharp against the fall of her hair. She had aged, and the lines of strain and exhaustion lay deep on her face, but despite the grey in her beard every Satyr watching held their breath when she spoke next.

“Led us?” she said, with cold deliberation. “Are you our leader, then?”

Realising his mistake, Lóni stammered, “No, Lady Frís, of course not. I only meant that I stand beside you as leader, as support. Since you grieve now, as a widow.”

“You do not stand beside Amad,” said Thorin, throwing back his shoulders a little. He bore the scars of dead Orcs and wolves upon his skin and could see no reason to fear Lóni. “That is my place. Do you challenge me?”

Wide-eyed, the old satyr backed away, only to find the unsympathetic crowd at his back. “You misunderstand.”

“I do not,” said Thorin. “I think you have indeed led us, through your words and schemes, away from our home and into danger. For what? For your own pride?”

A murmuring had begun as Thorin spoke, an angry muttering that seemed clearly directed at Lóni. Amad laid a hand on Thorin’s shoulder, pulling him back.

“Enough,” she said, and though she spoke quietly, she was obeyed at once. All faces were turned towards her as she surveyed the Satyrs, leaner than they had once been, the years of hunger and cold lying like a shadow over all of them. She looked tired herself and, Thorin thought, almost shamed.

“Lóni, the runes,” she said. “You will cast them for me. Do not refuse.”

A flicker of hope lit Lóni’s eyes, and he muttered the chant at speed, fumbling for the runes at his belt and scattering them with a practised hand. He peered at them theatrically, opening his mouth to speak before Amad shook her head.

“No,” she said simply. “Óin,” she called to the crowd. “I would have you read these.”

From behind his father, Óin made his way forward, alarm writ plain upon his face. He cleared his throat and nodded, frowning down at the stones. 

“I don’t understand,” he said after a long pause. “Follow the waters to a hill and the end of our journeying. Seek counsel from the Old One. Four years have passed and still they say the same as ever. We have done what is asked already!”

The murmuring amongst the assembled Satyrs grew louder. “Lóni?” asked Amad. “What do you make of this?”

“Well,” spluttered Lóni. “We are… in the right place. And my counsel is still required, clearly.”

“Orcs approach our home, and still this is all they say?” asked Amad, glaring.

“Give me leave to meditate upon the question, Lady Frís,” pleaded Lóni. “I cannot interpret the mysteries of the portents without a little time.”

“Time?” spat Amad, her rage bursting out of her at last, terrible and majestic. “It seems to me that you have had four years, Lóni. Will the Orcs give us more time whilst you meditate upon these nothings? I have been a trusting fool. Your portents have brought us to hills which hold neither stone nor metal, nor food, nor barely even any shelter. I have had enough of them, and you.”

The waters of the lake lapped quietly against the shore as Amad drew a deep breath. 

“We are alone,” she told the assembled Satyrs. “And if we are alone, I would have us be safe.” Amad looked at Thorin, and nodded soberly. “Tomorrow we begin our preparations, and return to the Shire.”


	3. A Bit of a Pickle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one got away from me, so I've split in two parts - the next half isn't finished at all, but I hope you'll enjoy this bit. This is where that "Mature" tag finally starts becoming properly appropriate, just so you know. ;)
> 
> Many thanks to [McManatea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmanatea) for the swift and encouraging beta work!
> 
> \--
> 
> 23/10/2016: YOU LIKE AUS? I HAVE AN AU FOR YOU. [Irrealia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrealia/pseuds/Irrealia) wrote [an alternative version to this chapter with more peen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8351902), and I HIGHLY recommend it!!
> 
> 26/10/2016: ARTTT!!! The incomparable ruto has drawn for this chapter! [Cute stuff can be found here](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/152339836896/late-drawings-for-ahiddenkittys-amazing-tweens), including Bilbo staring and the last strand of the scarf, and [NSFW STUFF can be found HERE](http://nastyrutobuka.tumblr.com/post/152347099800/more-things-for-ahiddenkittys-3rd-chapter-of), as our boys each take a private moment to reflect on the changes time has wrought upon the other. :3

Bilbo was staring. He was well aware that he was staring, and yet he didn’t seem able to stop. His mother kicked him under the table and it barely registered as he sat, hands around his slowly cooling cup of tea, staring at Thorin.

Thorin, his dearest and oldest friend, who had returned just as he once promised, but not at all as he had been when he left. By the time Bilbo had washed his face and hands and changed into a fresh shirt and waistcoat, Thorin had been swept into Bag End by Mother and Father, both exclaiming delightedly over him. Now he sat at their kitchen table as politely shy as ever, but very much larger, certainly taller than before and as broad as a barn, the heavily furred expanse of his bare chest and thick arms interrupted in several places by raised pink scars.

“Do have another bit of cake, Thorin,” said Mother, and kicked Bilbo’s shin again, hard. “It all needs eating, and I should think you could do with it!”

That was also true. The muscle of Thorin’s body wasn’t just larger now, it was hardened, like chiseled stone, to an extent that was frankly alarming. He had always been much stronger than Bilbo, of course, but now when he took the little china plate from Bilbo’s mother, it looked as if it might snap between his giant fingers. 

The horns that had been short pointed prongs when he left had grown longer, curving back down around about his ears, where elegant gold rings hung decorated with precious stones. His accent was thicker and his speech just a little more strange, and he seemed altogether incongruous sitting in their Smial, like a hero from some grand tale, not at all the sort of creature that would drink tea quietly with humdrum little Hobbits. Even his name was grander now: Thorin Oakenshield, after what sounded like some truly terrifying business where he had killed Orcs with merely his bare hands and a branch of wood. 

Yet out of all of it, the bit that tugged at Bilbo’s heart the most was that the hair of Thorin’s beard had grown in properly at last, and that little bare gap he remembered at the corner of Thorin’s mouth would never be exposed again. He had wanted to kiss it, once, and now he never could. A silly thing to care about, of course.

Bilbo looked back down at his tea, frowning crossly, and heard Thorin break off mid-sentence from another terrifying story. It seemed the Satyrs had been living beside some forsaken lake in the wilds of the North, beyond even Long Cleve, treasure hunting in ancient abandoned cities and well-nigh starving to death. Even Thorin’s stories seemed too large for Bilbo. He took advantage of the pause and stood, patting himself down to check his matches and tobacco were in his pockets, and took up his pipe. 

“Do excuse me, I’m quite done in after that gardening. I think I might just go for a smoke,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. That was a safe escape, at least. Thorin did not smoke.

“I shall join you,” said Thorin, rummaging immediately in the leather pouch slung at his hip. To Bilbo’s astonishment he withdrew from it a small stone pipe. 

“What a good idea,” declared Mother. “I must clear all this away and get started on dinner in any case. How thoughtful, Bilbo.”

Bilbo gaped at her in speechless outrage. If she hadn’t wanted him staring, why on earth would she thwart his escape? 

Thwarted it was, however. He could hardly refuse to let Thorin come with him, so with a tight smile he nodded, and stomped ungraciously out of the front door to the bench that sat by the gate, below his own bedroom window. The wood creaked a little when Thorin sat down wordlessly beside him. The warm sun still shone, though it was lower in the sky by now, and not a soul could be seen on their side of Bywater except songbirds and squirrels.

Sitting side-by side the temptation to stare was lessened, but on the Hobbit-sized seat Thorin’s body was extremely close, and warm, and impossible to ignore. It had been a warm day, and Bindbale was some distance from Bag End, so that Bilbo could feel the faint dampness of Thorin’s arm against his shirt, and the earthy scent of his sweat. There was something else behind it too, very faint and distantly familiar, a rich, heavy smell like blackcurrant leaves in the sun, a smell from far simpler, happier times. Bilbo lit his pipe swiftly and took a pull.

“May I share in your leaf? Mine is old, and I fear it has spoiled,” said Thorin hesitantly, and Bilbo handed him the pouch, offering a match once his pipe was filled. He noted how Thorin’s eyes closed blissfully at the taste, as if it had been long missed.

“That is good,” said Thorin gladly, exhaling a thick plume.

“Hmm,” replied Bilbo, doing his best to drag his gaze away. They sat in painful silence for a moment as he wondered what in the world they might still be able to talk about. He thought back to the stories Thorin had been telling.

“So, um. What became of Lóni, in the end?”

Thorin scowled, his expression suddenly so thunderous that Bilbo devoutly wished he had thought of some other question. 

“I know not,” he said. “Frerin was deemed too injured to travel before Winter fell upon us, and as the Orcs had not yet found our dwelling place, we dared put off the journey until fairer weather. Near three months had we to prepare ourselves, and all that time Lóni dripped poison in our people’s ears against Amad, so that when we set forth, a full score stayed behind, hailing him their leader.”

Thorin drew on his funny little stone pipe, holding the smoke in his mouth a while, and when he spoke again he sounded more calm. “Beyond Long Cleve, Amad bade us set camp and tarry another fortnight. Betimes almost all who had thought to stay behind came thither, and yet a few more rejoined once we set off again, but not he. Mayhap greed and disloyalty have made Orc-meat of him already. I care not.” 

As brutal as that sounded, Bilbo could hardly disagree. Indeed, it appeared to be largely Lóni’s fault that Thorin had left in the first place, so that Bilbo was unable to summon even an ounce of pity for the wretch.

“You must have a new Healer then, to make seven, if I remember correctly?” said Bilbo, steering toward safer topics as best he could. 

Thorin shook his head. “No. Our prophecies have forsaken us, what need should we have now to keep such ways?”

Bilbo frowned. Thorin sounded resigned about it, as if it was a disappointment he had learned to stomach, and Bilbo did not like to hear that hopeless note in his old friend’s voice, not at all. He fiddled with a button on his waistcoat anxiously. It seemed he was not managing the conversation terribly well. 

Thorin cleared his throat, the sound sudden enough in the quiet of late afternoon to make Bilbo flinch slightly. “Your garden,” said Thorin. “It looks well.”

“Does it?” spluttered Bilbo in surprise, leaning past him to survey the mess of twisty roots and scattered dirt that had been left abandoned at Thorin’s arrival. He hadn’t even put away his tools. Bilbo dared a glance upwards to see if Thorin was mocking him, but the Satyr’s expression was more confused than anything else.

“Things are... growing in it,” said Thorin hesitantly. He indicated a bed of hollyhocks with the stem of his pipe. “Flowers,” he said, a tiny crease appearing between his brows.

“I suppose that’s true, yes,” said Bilbo, nodding vigorously. He might not be much of a gardener, but there wasn’t a Hobbit born who would not appreciate such a compliment. “Thank you,” he said, and leaned back against the bench feeling rather more comfortable. Before he could think better of it, the words had escaped him. “You lost the scarf, I see.”

“Lost, yet not mislaid,” replied Thorin at once, and then paused, as if wanting to say more, playing the mouthpiece of his pipe across his bottom lip in a most distracting manner. “An Orc died upon it.”

Despite the stories Thorin had been telling, Bilbo could not escape a frisson of terror at the thought of real, actual Orcs, and Thorin fighting them. The mere idea that the scarf he had knitted could have been present at such a thing seemed so absurd he almost wanted to laugh. 

“Oh. I imagine that would stain,” said Bilbo.

Thorin inclined his head in wry acknowledgement, and tugged forward one of the braids that hung now from his temples. 

“I saved a strand of it,” he said, holding it out towards Bilbo with an expression that seemed part hope and part shyness.

Bilbo looked, and there it was. Woven into Thorin’s braid was a long thread of blue and pale grey wool, worn thin in parts, and distinctly shabby against the glossy strands of his beautiful hair. 

“So you did,” said Bilbo, feeling the strangest sort of squeeze about his heart, almost like indigestion. “Well, I shall have to knit you another, I suppose.”

Thorin smiled. “A kindness I dare not deserve,” he said, and Bilbo snorted with laughter.

The conversation began to flow a little more freely after that. They discussed the fine weather, the relative coldness of Northern climes, the circumstances of Bilbo’s father’s past illness, and then onto Frerin’s injury, and whether it hurt to have holes poked in one’s ears, and (at great length, and with not a little laughter on Bilbo’s part) why one was unlikely to get fruiting apple trees from planting whole apples in Spring. 

Their shadows stretched out before them through the early evening, Thorin’s longer one reaching past the gate, until Mother poked her head sheepishly out of the door. It was time for Bilbo to go in for dinner, and Thorin to return home.

\--

After he had eaten Bilbo tidied the garden, cleaning the dirt from his fork and trowels and scooping most of the disturbed earth back into the beds, stacking the uprooted ash wood on the paving under the kitchen window to dry overnight, until it could be burned in the morning. There was more than enough to do, so that he managed to avoid his parents pretty well until it came time to prepare supper.

“Well,” said Mother merrily, as she tossed sliced onions and potatoes into a sizzling skillet. “That was a lovely surprise, wasn’t it?”

“Mmm,” replied Bilbo, carefully noncommittal. He stared resolutely down at the bowl of eggs he was whisking, unwilling to be drawn further.

“Did Thorin say anything when he left? About when you might meet up again?”

“Yes,” said Bilbo. “I said I’d meet him next Highday.” 

Saying aloud that he would be meeting Thorin again, so soon, made his stomach turn over in a manner that was not wholly comfortable. Now that Thorin was no longer present he seemed even more unreal than when he had sat in this room with them all.

“Lovely! Any special plans? You were talking an awfully long time, out there.”

“No,” said Bilbo, still whisking. “No plans, not really.”

“Bilbo,” asked his Father, glancing up from a chopping board full of parsley. “Are we having omelettes, or meringues?”

Mother exhaled a sigh that was close to a groan, setting the skillet down half-off the hotplate. Gently she took the bowl of eggs from Bilbo’s hands and pointed him towards the dresser.

“I think those are done, thank you, darling,” she said. “Perhaps you could lay the table. Bungo dearest, did I tell you about Farmer Maggot? I hear he’s been dipping white eggs in tea to brown them and charge an extra copper per dozen.”

Father returned to his parsley. “My love, it’s not like you to listen to gossip.”  
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but I had it of Alyss Twofoot, and she’s as steady as they come!” replied Mother, and as simply as that, the subject of Thorin was dropped. 

Bilbo was glad of it, and gladder still when it was not raised again. It had been an extraordinarily long day, and he excused himself from tea in the parlour to get an early night, fully expecting to drop off the moment his head touched the pillow.

He did not.

It was Bilbo’s custom to fall asleep on his stomach, his arms folded under his pillow. As he sleepily reminded himself of all the ash saplings he had still to uproot in the morning, an image of Thorin and his strong, brawny arms swam insistently into his mind, wrenching the ghastly things from the soil with ease, broad hands wrapped about the slim trunks and the thick muscle of his thighs flexing under fur as he pulled. Though perhaps he might break a light sweat if the day were warm, or lift his glorious hair up from the nape of his neck and twist it over one shoulder. All at once Bilbo found lying on his stomach rather uncomfortable.

He had thought of Thorin at bedtime and found his body responding in such a way before now, it was true, certainly in the first year after he left, when Bilbo had expected his friend to return at any moment. Those imaginings had been drawn from memories, however, and Thorin had changed a great deal whilst he was gone in ways both alarming and intriguing. Now, he looked more like the Thorin Bilbo had sometimes seen in dreams than the one he remembered when awake. 

Bilbo rolled over and lay glaring at the ceiling, determinedly thinking of other matters, to no avail whatsoever. Thinking of cake simply reminded him of Thorin’s large hands that afternoon, holding his mother’s West Farthing crockery. Thinking of the tobacco-box he had begun carving for Father’s birthday brought to mind the shape of Thorin’s lips about his pipe. Before long Bilbo felt as if every hair on his body was standing to attention, never mind simply his prick.

There could be no falling asleep in his current state, he realised. With a groan, Bilbo hauled himself back out of bed and crossed the room with somewhat awkward steps to his chest of drawers. Taking out two plain handkerchiefs, Bilbo scrunched up his nose briefly before taking one more, and then another. As a rule he generally did not like to wring himself dry, but the reappearance of Thorin Oakenshield was very definitely a multiple-handkerchief situation. 

Creeping back under the covers, Bilbo began by returning to the thought of those large hands, and how they might feel against his skin. Tugging up his nightshirt, he tweaked at a nipple absently and wrapped the other about his prick. In his imagination Thorin leaned over him, smiling, blue eyes watchful and soft. He would be careful, of course, thought Bilbo, beginning to stroke himself, but perhaps he wouldn’t quite know how strong he truly was. Biting his lip against the thought, Bilbo turned his head against the pillow and tightened his hand a little more than usual, imagining Thorin’s strong grip about him. He was bone-tired, truly, and did not expect to find himself spending so quickly, barely grabbing a handkerchief in time.

It didn’t matter too much, since most of it landed on his bare stomach, and he was glad to have pulled his nightshirt up so far. He threw the first messed handkerchief onto the floor and continued, adding more detail to the picture of Thorin in his mind. There were the long soft ears, pierced with blue stones in golden settings, and the wide, ridged horns. Bilbo imagined touching them, which would bring Thorin’s face closer to his own, and perhaps there would be kisses. He wondered what kisses would feel like, with Thorin’s bearded face. He wondered if there would be a taste to Thorin’s skin, and if it would taste the way he smelled, that slight, delicious perfume that hung about him. Eyes closed, Bilbo pressed his free hand to his face, fingers laid across his mouth to stand for Thorin’s lips, and kissed them, over and over. He squeezed his eyes shut, stifling the moan that escaped him as he spent once again.

A second handkerchief joined the first on his bedroom floor and Bilbo settled back against his pillows again, feeling utterly boneless. The exhaustion of the day seemed to be catching up with him now, since whilst his prick showed no signs of flagging, it was not quite so swiftly responsive this time. 

His thoughts were vaguely of kisses, and the scent of Thorin’s skin, and of Thorin’s broad hands, and in sheer muddled weariness he was unable to put together any more coherent fantasy. Bilbo’s fingers crept inside his mouth, and he sucked upon them, instinctively imagining Thorin’s thick fingers there, and where he might wish to put them next. They would be bigger than his own, so that even just one would feel large inside him. There was a small, secret jar hidden in Bilbo’s nightstand filled with a beeswax based salve of Mrs Botty’s recipe, but it seemed suddenly too distant to reach, his hands too occupied with his prick and his tongue. Spit was better than nothing in a pinch, he knew, when he was already near completion and desire overtook him too far. Would he be in such a rush if Thorin were here? Would Thorin be so eager?

Before Bilbo could decide to reach for the drawer-pull, the coiled heat below his belly unwound without warning, and he spilled across his hand in a longer, slower finish than either of the two before. This one wracked every nerve of his body, taut as a bowstring, leaving him shaking with the force of it, muffling his helpless groans against wet fingers.

As he thudded back against his sheets for the third time, panting and spent, Bilbo had barely the energy to reach for the last two handkerchiefs. Blearily it occurred to him that he would most certainly fall asleep easily now. 

Really it hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

\--

It had, in fact, been a terrible idea. That night Bilbo slept deeply and dreamlessly, but the following evening was a different matter. 

He sat in the parlour as usual after dinner, drinking chamomile with his parents and idly perusing a pamphlet of knitting patterns suitable for scarves, and at bedtime had fallen asleep pondering the potential merits of a diagonal rib over woven lattice stitch. 

There was really no reason at all for him to dream of Thorin touching himself as Bilbo had the night before. In the dream, Thorin looked exactly as he had when they had seen each other the previous day, broad and heavy-horned, flashes of gold glinting in his ears, though he was sitting in some dim, dark cave, curled in upon himself as his fist worked rapidly in his lap, his breathing quick and desperate.

Bilbo woke in a horrified sweat. He was stiff again, and couldn’t be sure whether it was worse to stay awake and deal with the matter or force himself back to sleep and risk more dreams. To his great chagrin, it turned out that he could avoid neither. Over breakfast he announced a desire to go fishing, and surreptitiously washed a distressing number of handkerchiefs in the stream.

The dreams, and their effects, returned twice more in the week that followed, so that once Highday came around Bilbo found it extremely difficult to look Thorin in the eye. Worse, he couldn’t even begin explain himself, and the hurt feelings rolled from Thorin like cherry-blossom on a breezy day. It was a great shame, given they had parted only the week before as something almost like the friends they had once been.

They walked in silence through the woods, Bilbo ambling beside Thorin blindly, consumed by his guilt, before realising he had no idea where they were headed, and asked.

Thorin stopped, his head on one side. “I do not know,” he said. How dismally unfair it seemed that his voice should be so deep and bewitching now. It almost made the admission sound profound.

“We’ll get lost then, following you. Let’s have a look,” huffed Bilbo, glancing about them. “Aren’t we somewhere near where your caves used to be? Over yonder?”

“Yes,” said Thorin, and his ears perked up eagerly. “I might show you our caves?” he suggested, and began trotting in that direction, tail twitching, before Bilbo could even point out that he had, in fact, seen them before. Perhaps they were different now, he thought, and giggled to himself at the idea of redecorating caves. Maybe the Satyrs had discovered wallpaper and doilies whilst they were gone.

“What is funny?” asked Thorin over his shoulder.

“Oh nothing, nothing,” said Bilbo, not quite comfortable enough to share the joke.

As they approached the old caves, it became clear there was something odd going on. Even from a distance a loud thudding sound drifted towards them, yet Thorin merely smirked when Bilbo asked him about it, so presumably there was no danger. The concealed arch remained as effectively hidden behind its ivy curtain as it had ever been, and to his irritation, Bilbo still could not spot it without Thorin’s guidance. He followed Thorin down the narrow stone passage, the sound of blows upon the rock echoing ever louder, until they emerged into the open courtyard and he gasped.

Bilbo had never exactly been a frequent visitor to Thorin’s home, no more than Thorin had been to his. They lived a good distance from one another, and had preferred to meet half-way, in the woods. Still, infrequent was not never, and Bilbo remembered the wide, open expanse of blank stone that had lain at the heart of the Bindbale caves. Most often he had seen it empty, though sometimes a handful of Satyrs would have gathered there, singing or playing music, or sleeping in sunbeams, or working at other mysterious Satyr things. It would not have been polite to stare, and so Bilbo had not. He had always simply followed Thorin to his rooms.

Today, there were more of the Satyrs gathered there than he had ever seen together in one place, and most appeared to be vigorously attacking the stone about them with metal implements Bilbo had most definitely never seen before. 

The day was dry and warm, and clouds of pale stone-dust filled the air, making him cough as he blinked it from his eyes. Through the haze it was hard to fully fathom the purpose of all the effort, but evidently it was all of great import. Bilbo caught sight of a shorter Satyr standing not far off, with a long beard that flicked out neatly at the end, and horns that matched.

“Is that Balin?” he asked loudly, tugging at Thorin’s arm. Balin heard, and turned to greet him with a beaming smile. 

“Bilbo!” he cried. “By my beard, you are twice the Hobbit you were when last we met!”

Bilbo smoothed down his waistcoat awkwardly. He cut a well enough figure to his own mind, but when all about him were hulking Satyrs built entirely of lean, sinewy muscle and fur, it seemed almost in bad taste to accept the compliment. He brushed it off with a smile and a change of subject. “Whatever are you all up to, Balin? It looks very hard work.”

“Why Laddie, we are building our home. Has not Thorin told you? We are returned, and this time we mean to stay.”

“Stay?” repeated Bilbo, his heart leaping in his chest despite himself. “But… you mean forever?”

“I did tell you,” said Thorin, faintly aggrieved, though he smiled when Bilbo turned to him in astonishment.

“I… I thought I must have misheard. I didn’t think you could really mean it. But goodness, that’s marvellous news,” protested Bilbo, realising as he spoke how very sincerely he meant it. 

Balin chuckled. “I am glad you think it so. It is good to see you again, Bilbo.” 

“You too, Balin,” said Bilbo, not so amazed that his manners had left him. “I can’t quite believe it, after all this time. And my goodness, you really do mean to stay! Look at all this!” 

The scene of chaos was beginning to resolve itself as Bilbo paid more attention. To the far left of the caves’ entrance, great chunks of stone were being quarried out by the largest Satyrs and passed back towards others who squared them off into large blocks suitable for building. Over on the right, a few of the older Satyrs were carving sharp lines of decoration onto the smoothed surfaces over several tunnel entrances, which seemed already much more regular and civilised than before, and many younger Satyrs watched them intently, asking questions as if at their lessons.

Balin shrugged, glancing at Bilbo with amusement. “Poor wretches indeed you must have thought us, to imagine the makeshift lodgings we kept here before were all of our skill.”

“Not at all!” protested Bilbo, shaking his head hastily. “I’m sure there’s no end to your people’s talents. Why, I wouldn’t even have known whose woods these are.”

Balin frowned at him in mild confusion. “Whose woods?” 

“The landowner,” explained Bilbo. “The Hobbit that gave you the lease on these caves.”

“A lease? This land… is owned?” said Balin, as if it were the first time the idea had crossed his mind. 

Bilbo stared. “Well, of course,” he said. “All of the Shire is owned. By Hobbits, I mean. Since the King’s gift.”

The good humour had fallen from Balin’s face, and he looked suddenly as white as his beard. “So these caves belong to someone already? Some Hobbit? Are you certain of this, Bilbo?”

“But of course I am! Since Marcho and Blanco came from Bree!” Bilbo shook his head, flatly astounded that Balin might not have known such a thing. “The Shire was the King’s hunting grounds, until he gave it all to be settled by Hobbits, and it’s been ours ever since, all of it. Various estates are passed about and split up and rejoined by marriages and whatnot, but there’s not a bit of it that doesn’t belong to someone, at least.”

“We lived here before,” said Thorin. “No-one spoke to us of trespass then.”

Bilbo rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I suppose not many people realised you were here,” he said, thinking back. “Or at least, didn’t realise exactly where you were. So you haven’t anyone’s permission to settle here?”

“We have our own permission,” growled Dwalin, approaching from behind his brother, his Westron even more strange and thickly accented than Bilbo remembered it. Dwalin’s pate was almost entirely bald now, and dusted with white stone dust like flour on a freshly baked loaf. Not that that thought made him any less intimidating as he loomed over Bilbo with an ancient, battered pickaxe in his gigantic hands. “I say we shall not suffer to be displaced again. Let yon landowner come whensoever he will, to meet a taste of our steel!”

“Now you see here,” said Bilbo hotly. “We may not be as big and strong as you fellows, but there’s rather a lot of us, and moreover we have the Dunedain Rangers on our side. They remember the King’s decree, I assure you.”

“It will not come to that,” said Thorin, stepping between them. “Dwalin, do not be foolish. We can seek no enmity with the Hobbits, not if we are to have them as neighbours.”

“Indeed not,” agreed Bilbo, quietly relieved to have Thorin take his side. “This is a pickle.”

Balin sat down heavily on a rock and began to laugh ruefully, stroking his beard as he did. “A pickle! Indeed, it is some sort of foodstuff, I am sure, though I must trust you to know what sort, Master Baggins. But this issue must be resolved, and I have not the least idea how to go about it. Might you assist us, Bilbo?”

“Um,” said Bilbo. “I shall do my best, of course. I’ll ask Father. He owns a fair bit of land in these parts, and he ought at least to know whose this bit might be.”

He looked at their faces, Balin’s sorrowful, Dwalin’s frowning, and then Thorin’s, full of quiet hope. It was rather thrilling to realise his old friend might still place such faith in him, and Bilbo squared his shoulders, nodding with more confidence than he felt. 

If the thing could be done, he told himself, then Bilbo Baggins would see to it.


	4. A Very Merry Overlithe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very merry Overlithe and a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the incomparably marvellous [ruto!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rutobuka) Without whom none of this craziness would ever have existed.
> 
> It's a slightly rubbish birthday present, giving someone a chapter that was already probably overdue, but it does at least contains certain ~*developments*~ which I hope will make you happy, my darling. Happy birthday, and I hope it's your nicest yet. :3
> 
> Huge thanks are due to [mithrilbikini](http://archiveofourown.org/users/liasangria/pseuds/mithrilbikini) and [mcmanatea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmanatea), two brilliant betas whose swift and very helpful suggestions made a big difference.

Though Bungo Baggins had become infirm of body since his illness, he remained a diligent and thorough Landlord. Every week he would take up his walking stick and his notebook, and amble out of Bag End to spend a day or so visiting his various tenants, listening to any complaints or concerns and arranging their resolution without delay. He was well-known, well-respected, and well-loved.

As a result, there was very little about Hobbiton that he did not know, and it was with confidence that Bilbo presented the problem of Bindbale Woods to him one evening after supper. 

His father pursed his lips and looked thoughtful, which was not encouraging.

“I’m not sure I do know who owns those woods,” he admitted, taking a sip of his tea and idly turning the page of his book. “They’ve not been much more than untended land for so long now.”

It was a disconcerting answer, though no-one but Bilbo himself seemed much troubled by it. Bag End’s parlour was entirely peaceful, the little sticks of applewood in the fireplace crackling quietly, lit more for the scent and show than any real warmth. Summer was well on its way, and the windows of Bag End had been open all day to let the fresh air in. Soon they would doubtless dispense with a fire in the evenings entirely. Bilbo drummed his fingers on the sill of the window-seat and gazed out at a night sky that was a cloudless, velvety blue.

How typically infuriating, that his father should know every detail of the Shire except this one. There would be records in the Great Smials, presumably, and if not there then in the Mayor’s office, but that was all the way over in Michel Delving, and most likely there would be a charge to look them up. That would only be the beginning, too, since once they had determined who owned the land, there was still the matter of convincing them to agree to a lease. Bilbo leaned his head back against the wall and directed a quiet sigh towards the vaulted ceiling.

His Father set down his teacup and spoke again. “Do you know, it might be your Uncle Hugo.”

“How on earth would it be Hugo?” asked Mother, busy with her crochet. The little wooden hook twisted and dipped in her hand, as if dancing to unheard music. “I thought the Boffins were from The Yale originally, and it certainly isn’t Took land.”

Father chuckled. “Hugo’s grandfather Otto was the one who moved to Overhill. That branch of the family has been in these parts for decades, my Love.”

“Have they? Still, Overhill isn’t Bindbale,” insisted Mother.

“No, but it’s barely two hours stroll between the two. Doubtless that’s how my Aunt Lavender met and married him in the first place,” said Father. “You must have known that, Bella.”

Mother merely shrugged. “I am a Took, and married to a Baggins. I simply assume that I’m related to everyone. It’s easier.”

“What has Great Aunt Lavender to do with anything?” asked Bilbo, exasperated, and his parents both turned in mild surprise at his exclamation. 

“Since you ask,” said his father sternly, and sat back, closing his book and folding his hands over his waistcoat with the air of one preparing to deliver a lesson. Mother winked at Bilbo, and returned to her work with a smile. 

“Misses Laura and Lavender Grubb, your grandmother and your great aunt respectively, were the daughters of Old Thimus Grubb, who owned Bindbale Woods,” began Father. “The family name came from the pigs they bred to hunt for truffles, and Bindbale truffles were a fine delicacy, they say. I can tell you for certain that the deeds for the wood didn’t appear in my Mother’s will, so they can only have gone to Otto, by way of his marriage to Aunt Lavender.”

Bilbo leaned forward, grudgingly intrigued despite himself. Hobbit genealogy was a complex business, and one in which he had never bothered to educate himself particularly, but for once it had become a subject of interest.

“Of course, Otto might then have bequeathed it to any one of his children, but since it’s largely useless land now we can safely assume it would be lumped into his eldest son’s inheritance. I’d have to check the registries to be sure, but now I think on it, I’d bet a gold piece it’s Hugo’s,” concluded Father, slapping a hand against the book in his lap with satisfaction.

“But then it might have been ours so easily,” said Bilbo in dismay. “What rotten luck.” 

“If wishes were dumplings, my lad, then even beggars might feast,” said Bungo, and paused for a moment in thought. “That’s a jolly good one. I must write that down.”

Bilbo’s fist clenched, and it took a conscious effort not to scowl at his Father. The matter at hand was rather more important than his parents seemed to have realised. “What can we do, then?”

Father looked confused, and it was Mother who prompted him gently. “So that the Satyrs may stay there?”

“Of course,” said Father, sipping his tea again. “Well, your cousins Jago and Jessamine would stand to inherit the land next, so I very much doubt Hugo will be willing to simply hand the deed over or sell it. However, a lease upon land that is currently idle and unproductive would be hard to pass up, if we can propose reasonable terms.”

“All the same,” said Mother soberly, putting her head on one side. “Hugo isn’t exactly the most broad-minded soul, and they aren’t Hobbits. It might be better if I spoke to Donnamira first.”

“Oh, but you know how she is! She wouldn’t dream of having an opinion that Hugo hadn’t given her,” scoffed Father. 

Mother raised her eyebrows and laughed. “That’s my sister you’re speaking of, Dearest.”

Father waggled a finger, brushing the objection aside in his eagerness. “Besides, you know, thanks to the Grubb sisters Hugo isn’t just Bilbo’s Uncle but also his first cousin once removed, and my grandmother was Berylla Boffin before she married Balbo Baggins, and her mother was Hugo’s grandmother, which makes him some other sort of cousin again on the Baggins side. So that ought to have some influence, too!”

“Will it, though,” asked Mother, smiling at his enthusiasm. “Hugo probably doesn’t even know all of that himself, and he won’t thank you for telling him.”

“I’ll make some more tea,” said Bilbo, standing up suddenly. He collected up the cups and the pot, carrying the tray through to the kitchen as his mind worked furiously. 

If what his Father said was true, it seemed horribly unfair to find themselves so close and yet still so far. To say Uncle Hugo was not broad-minded was a generous estimation, in Bilbo’s opinion, who privately thought him an unpleasant sort. He was always too grandly dressed and his manners were defensively stuffy, qualities he shared with both Aunt Donna and their children Jago and Jessamine. Mother had once intimated that Donnamira believed she had got the worst bargain of the three Took sisters, with neither so much wealth and respectability as Belladonna, nor Mirabella’s dozens of faunts. It seemed silly to Bilbo that she and her family should then be so determined to pretend the precise opposite, but then, a great deal of Shire business often seemed silly to him.

He pouted at the kettle as he poured boiling water over a fresh scoop of tea leaves. Perhaps Mother could persuade her sister to arrange a lease, but goodness only knew how much they would want for it, and how could the Satyrs even pay? It was with a heavy heart that he carried the tray back into the parlour.

His mother was sitting forward in her chair, her half-finished doily abandoned. 

“Darling, I think we may have a plan,” she said, not waiting for him to even sit down. “It’s only two months to Overlithe, you know, and everyone will be there and in a merry mood, including your Grandfather. Whatever Hugo and Donna may say, if we can get Papa on our side, he’s certain to find some way to insist that they offer the Satyrs a lease.”

“It’s the best we can manage, I think,” said Bungo, stirring a generous spoonful of honey into his tea. “The Old Took is a force to be reckoned with. Thank you for the tea, lad.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Mother, accepting her cup. “You know it might be an idea, as well, if you tried to bring Thorin into Hobbiton more often, so that people could get used to seeing him about and understand what a fine fellow he is.” 

“I suppose,” said Bilbo dubiously. He had always rather preferred to keep Thorin to himself, if he was being entirely honest. Thorin was a Satyr, after all, suited to mysterious woods and secret hideaways, not the bright bare daylight of ordinary Hobbit life.

“Then you could bring him along to Overlithe!” said Mother cheerfully. “I should think Papa would be delighted to meet a real Satyr, especially once he’s got some strong drink inside him. Besides, I should like to keep up with dear Thorin, too. I’m fond of him.”

The thought of Thorin at Overlithe, amongst that giddy throng of Hobbits, was too peculiar for Bilbo to even imagine. He could see his mother’s logic, however. The plan was not a bad one, even if the thought of putting it into practice made his heart sink strangely.

“Of course,” he said, taking a sip of his own tea, though it was far too hot and he winced at the scalding heat. “Of course I can. Anything to help, after all. He’s a dear friend.”

\--

A week later, Bilbo stood in the caves once more, explaining the plan to Thorin, his family, and Balin, who judged it a reasonable thing to attempt. Standing a short way off, Dwalin still appeared inclined to pursue more immediate means, but Bilbo was pleased to note his grousing was not heeded.

He glanced over at Thorin, who was regarding him with such warm approval that Bilbo felt his cheeks flush, and the memory of recent dreams and imaginings shifted his gaze abruptly. It wouldn’t do. He had to concentrate if he was to help his friend.

Lady Frís was discussing something quietly with Balin in the Satyrs’ harshly beautiful language. It was odd to see her again, stripped of all her decorations now, and the once irrepressible Frerin limping beside her with a tall, carved stick to support his wasted leg. The hoof dangled, leaving a wandering trail through the mud beside the print of his healthier one, an odd line of tracks completed by the deep pits from his stick on the line’s other side. 

He was not the only Satyr around them who bore injuries, either. The struggles they had suffered were written upon their bodies as clearly as the long years they had been away. Little Dís was almost as tall as Bilbo already and would soon be taller. She hung from her mother’s arm, asking if she might go into Hobbiton too, and pouting when Lady Frís refused.

“There will be chances enough to come,” said Lady Frís, “if Mister Boggins does not overreach himself in this.”

“Baggins,” growled Thorin instantly. “Bilbo Baggins, Amad.”

His mother waved a dismissive hand. “Baggins, then. Go to, the pair of you. Balin will give you a purse of some coin, Thorin, to purchase sweetmeats or the like. We must hope you can charm more Hobbits than merely this one.”

Bilbo spluttered, taken aback equally by the idea of Thorin as charming or himself as having been charmed. He had no chance to protest, however, as Thorin seized his hand and dragged him unceremoniously towards the corridor that led out of the caves. Thorin’s cheeks were red, and he moved swiftly enough that Balin had to gallop to catch them and press a purse into his other hand, chuckling all the while into his snowy beard.

“What did your mother mean by that?” asked Bilbo, once they had emerged into the woods again.

“Nothing,” said Thorin firmly. “What is this Overlithe? What must I do for it?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Bilbo, scampering to keep up with Thorin’s rapid trot. “It’s an extra day, you see, that comes every four years, so we have a bigger party than usual. There’ll be more food and ale than even Hobbits can finish off, especially with last Overlithe being a bit of a wash-out after… you know. The Winter. When you left.”

Thorin slowed then, drawing to a halt. Faintly Bilbo registered that his hand was still enveloped in Thorin’s. Had his hands grown, too? Surely they had not been so large or so warm before. 

“I am sorry to have been gone so long,” said Thorin.

“Yes, you said,” replied Bilbo. A breeze moved in the treetops and the shifting light painted dappled shadows over Thorin’s tanned skin, chasing the new hollows along his ribs and glinting on the thickened ridges of his horns. Bilbo felt a sudden impulse to smooth his hand over them and discover how they felt.

Thorin was frowning, as if searching for words to explain something. “Much has changed, I know.”

Changed. Of course. Well, Bilbo had expected as much, hadn’t he? Those two silly kisses were long ago, and it was clear Thorin was much too magnificent now to be interested in a stay-at-home creature like himself. If there had ever been any chance, it was long gone, and perhaps only Bilbo even remembered their pretend wedding in the woods, the day they had first met.

“I’m sure it couldn’t be helped,” said Bilbo, unwilling to listen to any more. “Come along, Thorin. I didn’t really mean for us to go to Hobbiton straight away, but the markets will have closed if we don’t hurry.”

\--

The markets of Hobbiton were not yet as busy as they would be come high Summer, but there were still plenty of stalls and customers bustling about, gossiping and chattering and then falling abruptly silent as they caught sight of Thorin walking behind Bilbo, a clear head taller than anyone else present. It was quite a head, too, bearded and long-haired and topped with curving horns and long furred ears bedecked with gold and stones. As much Bilbo might struggle to tear his own eyes away from Thorin, he was thoroughly irritated by the rude stares that greeted them in the Market.

So it was no good attempting to be subtle, it seemed. Thorin was simply too conspicuous. Bilbo paused, setting his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and pondered which stall they might visit.

“I know!” he proclaimed, and set off, Thorin trotting dutifully in his wake.

Goody Ramsden sat at her usual pitch, barely visible behind baskets upon baskets of brightly-coloured wool. Some had been left as rovings ready for spinning, some were twisted already into skeins, and lying beneath all were still a few raw fleeces flecked with thorns and dead leaves. Long needles flickered in her hands at high speed though she paid them not the least bit of attention, watching the market with sharp eyes and collecting gossip. She had seen Bilbo and Thorin the moment they arrived, but at least had the decorum to pretend otherwise, feigning surprise as they approached her stall.

“Hello there, Master Baggins,” she said, her voice somewhat quavery as her gaze roamed the considerable expanse of Thorin’s figure with alarm. “What can I help you with today?”

“I want to make another scarf,” said Bilbo cheerfully. “For my friend Thorin. His last one got... mislaid.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Thorin open his mouth to explain, which would never do.

“Have you ever met my friend Thorin?” asked Bilbo hurriedly. “Thorin, this is Goody Ramsden. She sells wool and knows everyone’s business. Goody Ramsden, this is Thorin, who is my dear friend and also a Satyr.”

It wasn’t the most adept of introductions, but it would have to do. “I… oh,” said Goody Ramsden, nodding her head, as her needles clicked away just a little faster. “Delighted, I’m sure.”

“I am also delighted, Goody Ramsden,” said Thorin. He took a step closer, bowing deeply, and the old Hobbit screamed and dropped her knitting.

“It talks!” she hissed, turning to Bilbo, both hands clasped to her bosom in horror.

For once in his life, Bilbo was speechless. The only words that threatened to emerge from him were the sort one couldn’t possibly use in public, and certainly not to a respected older lady. 

It was Thorin who broke the silence.

“I have not spoken Westron in a long while,” he said slowly. “In days past, Master Baggins helped me with it, but mayhap I am a poor student. I am sorry for causing you any surprise, Goody Ramsden.”

She blinked at Thorin, looking him up and down afresh, as if he were some piece of meat in a butcher’s window, thought Bilbo crossly. 

“How extraordinary,” she said, addressing Bilbo from the corner of her mouth. “I thought it must be like a trained Magpie, but it knows what it’s saying, doesn’t it?”

“He does, yes,” replied Bilbo through gritted teeth. “About that wool, I’m not sure after all that I really need...”

“Oh!” cried Goody Ramsden at once, throwing up her hands. She bustled forward to rummage through her baskets, yarn and needles falling unheeded to the ground. “But I have some really wonderful things that would suit it, ah, him, yes, simply beautifully! Thorin, was it? You look at this, it’s got real silk in, such pretty stuff!”

She pressed a skein of beautifully soft, whisper-thin yarn into Bilbo’s hand in a vivid shade of leafy green. 

“I hadn’t really thought,” admitted Bilbo, dithering despite the old biddy’s earlier rudeness. It really was beautiful yarn. “Really it should be your decision, Thorin.”

“My choice?” repeated Thorin. He regarded the rainbow laid out before them and reached across to one of the lower, cheaper baskets, selecting a skein of long-fibred wool with soft curls protruding from the twist in parts, in a shade of russet brown.

“Really?” asked Bilbo, taking it from Thorin’s hand and giving it a squish. “It’s a bit of a coarse twist. I should think it’ll itch dreadfully, and besides it’s too fluffy for any sort of stitch pattern.”

“I like the colour,” said Thorin stubbornly, and Bilbo scoffed.

“I don’t see why, it isn’t anything special.”

“It’s like your hair,” said a quiet voice behind him. Bilbo turned in surprise to see Bluebell Thatchreed peeping at him from under a fancy bonnet. She had a basket of shopping on one arm and Willibald Hebble on the other, and Bilbo tossed the skein back into the basket at once.

“Dear Bluebell! How wonderful, I haven’t seen you in an age,” he exclaimed. “Let me introduce my friend Thorin, I don’t know if you’ll recall my mentioning him? He’s been away, but he’s back now, so we thought we’d come to market for once. Thorin, this is Bluebell Thatchreed, and her extremely lucky intended, Wilibald Hebble. Bluebell is the sweetest girl you could hope to meet, wonderfully musical, and her pastry is unmatched in all the Shire, and Wilibald, is, um. Wilibald, you grow particularly good potatoes, is that right?”

“I do,” snorted Wilibald, as Bluebell reached shyly for Thorin’s hand. 

“Mister Thorin,” she said, bobbing a small curtsey. “I’ve heard so much about you, it’s lovely to meet you at last.”

Thorin took her small hand gingerly in his own enormous one. “At your service,” he said, and Bluebell gazed up at him in wonder.

“Goodness,” she said. “What a deep voice you have. And your eyes really are blue! I thought Bilbo might be exaggerating, but he wasn’t at all, was he?” 

Bilbo suppressed a groan, wondering how it could be that even Bluebell, the very soul of decorum, had managed to forget her manners so utterly when presented with Thorin. It was only a momentary lapse, thank goodness, before she took a step back, blushing.

“And you have returned to stay, then?” she asked, slipping her arm through Wilibald’s once more.

Thorin nodded, and managed a smile. “I hope I may,” he said. 

Bluebell nodded thoughtfully. She glanced about herself, her blush deepening further, and lifted her chin with determination.

“You must both come to tea one afternoon,” she said, raising her voice well above its usual volume.

Wilibald opened his mouth as if to protest and then shut it again suddenly at the stern look she threw him. It was distinctly unexpected. Bilbo did not remember her having such backbone when they had stepped out together, he was sure of it.

The invitation had been overheard by everyone near them. Doubtless Bluebell’s parents would be furious once they heard of it, but it could hardly be withdrawn now. Her family were of moderate note, and determinedly respectable, and for the Thatchreeds to receive Thorin at home would do his reputation a world of good very quickly indeed.

“How kind,” said Bilbo gratefully. “We would love to.” 

“Then it’s settled,” said Bluebell, ducking her head and smiling quietly, much more like herself again. “Perhaps the Highday after next?”

“Perfect,” said Bilbo. “I’m looking forward to it already. Will there be apple turnovers?”

“Oh, Bilbo! Of course there will, if you’d like,” giggled Bluebell, her blush deepening as Wilibald hurried her away through the crowd. Bilbo watched her go, obliged beyond measure for her kindness. Wilibald really was a fortunate fellow.

“Will you be having this one then, Master Bilbo?” asked Goody Ramsden from behind him. She had picked up the discarded skein and was holding it out hopefully.

Bilbo glanced over at Thorin, who looked dubious. Now that Bluebell had mentioned it, the colour was indeed similar to Bilbo’s hair, and that was not a wholly comfortable thought.

“No,” said Bilbo. He pursed his lips and turned to regard the baskets afresh, reaching at last for two elegantly ink-blue skeins. The shade would look exceptionally well upon Thorin, and there was a pretty sheen to the twist.

“Will it do?” asked Bilbo. “Blue suits you so well after all, and this will be much more comfortable than the other.”

Thorin smiled. “It will do,” he agreed.

“Oh, a lovely choice,” cooed Goody Ramsden. “It’s wool and flax mixed, that one, gives it a lovely stitch definition. Master Baggins is ever so good at his knitting now, something like this will show it off beautifully.”

Before Bilbo could think to prevent it, Thorin had reached into his coin purse from Balin. He pulled out a coin that shone like a polished sequin, bright yellow gold, and Goody’s eyes lit up.

“I wouldn’t normally take foreign money, you know,” she said, snatching it up at once, “but since you’re a friend of Master Baggins and Miss Thatchreed, I should think it’ll cover two skeins, thank you kindly.”

“I ought to pay,” argued Bilbo, half-heartedly. “It’s my present to you.”

Thorin shrugged, handing over the two skeins. “Then you must craft it with particular care,” he said, grinning, and Bilbo swatted his arm, laughing despite himself.

\--

On his return home, Bilbo’s mother was beside herself at the discovery that Thorin had been to Hobbiton without her seeing him. She insisted upon his attendance at Bag End for afternoon tea the following week, before the Thatchreeds could claim the honour first. It seemed nonsense to Bilbo. Hadn’t Thorin been drinking cocoa at their house since he first grew in his moustache?

That was before Bilbo noticed his mother passing Thorin his plate with a cake-fork laid upon the side for the first time. From the corner of his eye he watched as Thorin blinked at it. Then, with a quiet cough, Bilbo’s mother carefully and neatly used her own to slice and spear her cake in delicate mouthfuls, and Bilbo quickly followed suit, realising to his chagrin that he had underestimated his mother’s wisdom once again. 

Thorin frowned fearsomely at his plate, taking up the tiny fork in a hand so large it made the implement look like a child’s toy. With some effort, he managed to manipulate it sufficiently to ferry a large lump of cake into his mouth, or at least most of the way there, and his beard caught the majority of the crumbs. It would have been comical to watch, if not for Thorin’s solemn determination, and his pride at eventually managing to eat the whole slice without using his fingers. His second try was even more deft, and Bilbo could not help but be impressed with how rapidly Thorin acquired the skill.

The following week there was tea at Bluebell’s house. To no-one’s great surprise, Mrs Thatchreed was confined to bed with a headache that day, and Mr Thatchreed sat in silent, red-faced fury as the introductions were made. However, at Bilbo’s mother’s urging, Thorin had brought his harp, and after tea had been taken he played so sweet a duet with Bluebell that even Mr Thatchreed could not fail to be beguiled. Even better, Thorin managed the delicious turnovers with perfect manners, praising them sincerely, and within the week invitations began arriving “care of” Bag End. 

In short order Master Oakenshield, the civilised Satyr, was the talk of Hobbiton, so that Bilbo was frankly cross at how little time he had to see his friend alone. He was certain that Thorin found the endless round of tea parties easily as tedious as Bilbo did, but could only comfort himself that it was all to noble ends. 

In the evenings, he knitted the new scarf, in a cabled pattern of his own design, spurred on by Thorin’s teasing at the market. It was fiendishly complex and he swore at it until even his Mother, rarely bothered by such things, scolded him for his language. 

Between tea and shopping and knitting, they kept so busy that Overlithe was upon them in no time at all. 

\--

It was a fair day: not too hot, with a light refreshing breeze upon the air. Perfect weather for a party. 

Bilbo took his pipe and sat on the bench outside Bag End, watching with pleasure as the distant figures of relatives and neighbours passed on the roads below, making their way with baskets of food and drink and blankets, musical instruments and lanterns, down to the Party Tree field. 

Thorin would arrive soon. Bilbo fiddled with his ascot, tweaking the folds to careful perfection. It was a subdued grey-blue shade, borrowed from his Father, and he was wearing it on Mother’s advice. He had intended to wear one newly acquired for the occasion in a particularly dashing shade of purple, but looking in the glass he had been forced to concede this might suit him better, and set off his mustard-coloured waistcoat nicely. His hair had been tidied, his feet were brushed and his nails trimmed and entirely clean of ink or dirt. Not that it mattered, of course. He was not interested in catching anyone’s eye, and if he was smart enough to be presentable for speaking to Grandfather, that was all that was required.

Father had been making discreet enquiries and confirmed that Bindbale really was in the keeping of Uncle Hugo, so this evening he and Thorin were to make their proposal to the Old Took. 

The door behind Bilbo opened and he half-turned to see his mother upon the top step, one hand holding out her skirts artfully and the other patting her hair. She wore a new dress in a shade of dove grey silk, certain to be filthy by the end of the evening knowing his mother’s bad habits, but elegant enough for now. In her hair was a crown of daisies, white roses and simbelmyne, larger and more extravagant than Father’s, who now appeared beside her, a new walking-stick in his hand. His coat was a dark green, and his waistcoat a lighter shade, but the silver of his hair and his wife’s dress were perfectly matched. They made an admirable pair.

“Very nice,” Bilbo offered, and his mother nodded with satisfaction, a small smile upon her face.

“I think so. You as well. Is Thorin here yet?” She walked down to the gate and leaned over. “Isn’t that him now?” 

It was, indeed. Thorin could be seen just turning up Bagshot Hill, wearing two braids at his temples that bounced against his shoulders as he trotted. 

“We should go and meet him,” said Mother, picking up her skirts, and in the same instant she was through the gate and skipping down the hill. Bilbo scrambled to his feet, fumbling his pipe and almost dropping it, but she was gone before he could voice any protest. 

More slowly, Father tapped his way down the steps to elbow Bilbo in the side. “She likes that fellow, your mother. I’ll have to keep an eye on him, eh?”

Bilbo could only splutter as his father, chuckling at his own joke, made his way down to where Mother was greeting Thorin with a kiss to both cheeks. It took him a moment to collect himself and join them all.

He smoothed down his waistcoat and waited until Father had finished giving Thorin’s hand a good shake.

“You look well,” he managed, though it might have been the worst understatement of his life. 

Standing on their little road, Thorin seemed more like the hero of a fairy story than ever before. Two braids bound with glinting silvered clasps framed his handsome face, and his hair hung down his back in thick, dark waves. The fur of his haunches had been groomed to a glossy sheen, and his hooves and horns had been oiled and gleamed in the sunlight. In his ears the golden rings seemed brighter, as if they had been polished, and today he wore rings upon his broad hands as well. 

Worst of all, one notable benefit of all the cake they had eaten lately was a gentling of the lines of his chest and shoulders that made Bilbo’s hands fairly itch with the urge to touch, to stroke his hands down that broad, furred belly and feel the soft flesh over the alarming muscle beneath. It simply wasn’t fair.

“You also look well,” said Thorin softly, and Bilbo met his eyes at last. He looked quite as bewildered as Bilbo felt, though it was hard to imagine why.

“Time to go,” said Mother, grasping Father’s arm firmly. “We’ll be late, and everything will be eaten already.”

She set off at a speed that seemed a touch faster than might have been comfortable for Bilbo’s father, with his stick, but Bilbo was glad for the chance to hang back a pace or two with his friend. If the past month or so had been any indication, they would see little enough of each other once they reached the field. 

Together they set off down the road, the packed dirt warm underfoot, and distant, indistinct sounds of instruments tuning up and shouting drifting from the field. Most of Hobbiton would be already at the Party Tree by now, and there was no-one about to overhear them.

“I shall point out Grandfather as soon as we arrive,” said Bilbo. “He likes to oversee the arrangements, so he’s always one of the first there.”

Thorin nodded silently.

“Mother said we shouldn’t talk to him about leases or any of that until a bit later, though.”

Thorin merely grunted in response.

“Are you all right?” Bilbo asked.

“Should I have brought you a crown of flowers?” asked Thorin, turning on Bilbo a gaze so anxious that it might have made Bilbo laugh if it hadn’t been so piercing.

“No, indeed!” he said. “That’s for couples, or faunts playing pretend. You wear them if you’re married, or sometimes if you’re courting. You make one for each other, with flowers that mean things. Or for weddings. I mean you could wear a buttonhole - not that you have a buttonhole, of course - or tuck a flower behind your ear if you wanted the decoration. I suppose you could twine something around your horns...”

It became apparent to Bilbo that he was babbling, and he stopped. “You know,” he said grasping for a topic other than weddings or the thought of tucking flowers into Thorin’s hair, “I don’t think we ever did think of anything to offer as terms for this lease of yours.”

Thorin shrugged. “True enough. Jewellers we were, once, but there are few raw materials in these parts, nor much market for such work once made.” 

“You work stone, too,” said Bilbo encouragingly. “Perhaps you might be stonemasons. Not every Hobbit wants to live in a Smial any more, we’re really very modern nowadays.”

Thorin grinned at him, such a handsome smile Bilbo’s stomach quite turned over. The gate of the Party Tree Field was before them, and within five minutes Bilbo had found himself an ale and lost Thorin entirely.

\--

Bilbo had never been one for dancing, particularly not when the alternative was comfortable benches and enough peace to hear oneself speak. As Thorin was spun and passed between a half-dozen cackling Hobbiton goodwives, he couldn’t decide whether he was glad or sorry of it, and gave up watching before long. 

Along the field’s edge under banners of streamers and bunting stood trestle tables dressed with white cloths, bearing so many dishes of fine foods there was scarcely room for them all. He spotted Bluebell laying out her apple turnovers, and managed to snag several before Wilibald appeared, huffing and puffing at Bilbo until he beat an unwilling retreat. 

A few tables along he found himself nodding and smiling his way through an interminable conversation with some giggling Brandybuck cousin whose name he could not recall, just barely worth it for the superlative Steak and Ale pie she had brought. Apparently the secret was in the precise blend of mustards, although privately Bilbo suspected the sheer quantities of ale and honey involved might have more to do with it. 

The band began yet another tune, faster than the last one, and a roar of approval rose from the assembled crowd.

“Oh, this one is my favourite!” exclaimed the Brandybuck cousin, and looked expectantly at Bilbo.

“Is it? What a shame I’ve hurt my foot,” said Bilbo, backing away, and remembering after a step or two to hobble a bit. 

The ale-taps weren’t far off, so Bilbo filled a mug and and tucked himself behind a barrel, out of the hustle and bustle of the party. All around him were Hobbits singing, dancing, laughing, eating and drinking, yet somehow Bilbo wasn’t in the mood to join them, nor was he about to think too hard about why that might be. 

He managed to quietly drink a half or two before Delphinia Burrowes rounded the corner and loudly demanded he show her his Satyr. Looking around, Bilbo realised Thorin was no longer dancing. Indeed, he could no longer see Thorin anywhere. Delphinia seemed to think he was hiding him on purpose, and was jabbing him in the chest with a finger when her sister Fritillary noticed and took pity on Bilbo.

“Phinny, didn’t you come here with Sigismond Took? We can’t have you monopolising every eligible bachelor in Hobbiton, you must leave some for me too,” she trilled, and hustled him away without further ado.

There was a tent under some trees in a far corner of the field where the cheeses and syllabubs had been set, protected from the curdling sunshine. Fritillary led Bilbo there without listening to a word of his protests, and smugly pointed out a quiet corner where a rug had been laid out with plenty of cushions around it. The party was in full swing and it was too nice a day for there to be many other Hobbits taking refuge under canvas. 

“No-one will bother you here,” she said, patting his arm and flopping herself down on the cushions, to lie back with an arm across her face. “Or me.”

It was rather a brilliant solution. A short while later the flap of the tent twitched aside and they were joined by Lily Brook, who gracelessly hiked up her skirts to reveal a secret flask of her father’s moonshine hidden in the top of her garter. Even a sniff of the stuff was enough to make Bilbo’s eyes water, and he refused it politely, observing with some trepidation the merry abandon with which Lily could slug the stuff down. 

Bilbo did not know either of them well, but it transpired Lily and Tilly were neighbours and best friends, and he found them much more sensible company than expected. Between the ale, their cheerful conversation, and the large quantities of cheese within arm’s reach, he was soon having a perfectly adequate time. Even when the discussion turned to courting, as it was bound to do eventually, for once he felt perfectly comfortable with the subject. Neither of the girls seemed to have much time for such business, and it was Fritillary who announced cheerfully that she would never, ever marry, not unless she might marry Lily.

“And you could hardly do that,” agreed Bilbo. “Whatever would you call yourselves, for a start?”

“Brook-Burrowes,” said the girls in unison, gazing dreamily at one another across Bilbo’s lap as if he wasn’t there at all.

“Oh,” said Bilbo weakly, and relieved Lily of the flask. Suddenly he felt he could stand to try a taste of it, at least. 

He was in the middle of the resultant coughing fit when his mother found him.

“Bilbo Baggins!” There was a smear of mud across her silk skirts already and it looked from her arms and hands as if she might have been climbing trees.

“Mother?” said Bilbo, through his splutters. Lily hastily whipped the flask from his hand and tucked it behind her back.

“What do you mean by it, that’s what I’d like to know?” demanded his mother. “Poor Thorin is out there hiding in the dark and Papa says you haven’t spoken to him all evening! Now, scoot!” 

She flapped her hands at him as if chasing a cat from an armchair, and reluctantly Bilbo got to his feet. He was pleased to find that despite several ales and a large swig of moonshine the ground still seemed reasonably horizontal, although as they stepped out of the tent he discovered his mother was right. 

It was growing dark already, and the grass under his feet was cold. The paper lanterns in the Party Tree had all been lit with candles and several small bonfires flickered in the twilight, though the band still held the stage and the dancing showed no signs of slowing down.

“Hiding?” he asked, and his mother pointed, with a face as if she had been eating lemons.

There, at a shadowed table out of the lanterns’ reach, Bilbo could dimly make out the gleam of horns and the flick of an ear. If his mother said anything more, he didn’t hear it.

It wasn’t much of a slope up to the table where Thorin was clearly sulking, but cheese and ale had played a part, and Bilbo took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

“What happened? I thought you were dancing, did someone step on your foot?” asked Bilbo, belatedly remembering that Thorin had hooves.

“I had my fill, and more,” muttered Thorin. The tables around him were empty too, the sheer force of his grump evidently enough to drive anyone away. He really could be an overgrown child, thought Bilbo irritably.

“Then why didn’t you come and find me? Mother’s been chewing my ear off like a fauntling!”

“You were busy. Talking to pretty Hobbit girls,” said Thorin. “You seem to know a great number of pretty Hobbit girls.”

Bilbo paused at this, startled at the venom in Thorin’s tone, then shook his head. “Get up, you lumpen oaf. We must find Grandfather before he goes home.”

Thorin scowled, his long ears folding back against his head at the insult. He rose from his seat still grumbling under his breath.

The Old Took was not hard to find, holding a makeshift court at the centre of the party, propped on a stool by the wine-barrels, beating his stick on their sides for emphasis as he spoke and roaring with laughter at his own jokes. It was a great stroke of luck that he was the sort of reprobate that liked to stay up as late as his daughters. 

Moreover he seemed delighted to make Thorin’s acquaintance at last, and although it took several attempts, Bilbo managed to draw him off to the side for a little privacy. What with deafness, drunkenness, and the proximity of the band, it took some doing to explain matters to the old Hobbit without informing the whole of Hobbiton, but at length the thing was managed.

“Well, bald my feet,” mumbled Grandfather, tugging on his lower lip thoughtfully. “That’s a fine idea. Your mother’s, I suppose? Good lass. I can’t deny, it wouldn’t hurt to take young Hugo down a peg or two, and I should think you goaty fellows need a home as much as any other folk. You come and see me next week, eh? I’ll need to have a think on how, but I’ll lay coin we’ll have it done by year’s end. You mark my words, lads!”

The bandleader announced the last song of the evening (despite having done the same for the previous two) and Grandfather turned towards the music with a wide grin, raising his stick and waving it to the beat. 

“Adamanta!” he cried. “They’re playing our song, ‘Manta! Excuse me lads, it’s time I took the prettiest lass in the Shire for a turn on the floor.”

As he wobbled away towards the lights, Thorin breathed out a deep sigh. “There is hope,” he said. “Thank you, Bilbo.”

Bilbo sniffed. It wouldn’t be proper to yell with happiness, although the urge was bubbling up inside him almost irrepressibly, and there were plenty enough Hobbits yelling all about them. It only seemed rather miraculous that the thing had been achieved so simply. Instead he suggested a drink to celebrate, and sent Thorin to find food whilst he set off toward the ale-taps again, with more spring in his step than before.

The stars were beginning to peep in the sky as he wove his way back through the hobbits still dancing in the party meadow, or at least pretending to. Thorin had returned to the table ahead of him and sat alone, slightly awkward and aloof but smiling to himself nonetheless. He had secured a loaf and a few sausages, and was tearing lumps from the bread his fingers, evidently not even thinking to slice and butter it as any Hobbit would.

Despite a faint haziness of alcohol Bilbo found himself struck anew with how utterly wonderful he was. 

And then Delphinia Burrowes waltzed directly into him. 

“Oops!” she squeaked, stumbling slightly, and Bilbo caught her awkwardly, hampered by the mug of ale he held in each hand. 

“Are you all right, Delphinia?” he asked, and she merely giggled.

“Bilbo you’re sweet, but I’m terribly sorry, I’m dancing with Siggy now,” she cooed, gazing over his shoulder to where Sigismond Took was standing on the edge of the dance floor, swaying slightly. “I went for a piddle,” she said, in what was clearly meant to be a whisper.

“Did you,” said Bilbo, unable to push her off with his hands so full. With the grace of a lame goose she managed to pull herself upright of her own accord, and Bilbo heaved a sigh of relief. It turned into a squawk of outrage when his arse was subjected to particularly savage pinch as she staggered off.

He turned to give her a piece of his mind, but already she had fallen back into Sigismond’s arms, where he appeared to be investigating her tonsils with his tongue.

Bilbo wondered if someone ought to let her family know where she was. He spotted Fritillary, now cheerfully ensconced in Lily Brooks’ lap, and as he dithered, wondering how best to address the subject, the girls began kissing quite as passionately as Delphinia and Sigismond. 

Bilbo gave it up. It was hardly his business, and they were all adults now, or tweens, more to the point, and free to engage in whatever unhygienic habits they wished, provided no damage was done. Although the whole business did put him in mind of far better kisses. He shrugged, and stomped his way back up to where Thorin waited.

“It’s a shame,” said Bilbo, the words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Thorin looked up in surprise, still chewing, his blue eyes wide and guileless.

“What is?” he asked, swallowing his mouthful and regarding Bilbo curiously.

“Well,” said Bilbo, sitting down on the bench beside him, wondering how to continue. He’d had slightly too much to drink and it seemed their plan had worked, and Thorin was too handsome and he really was tired of being so careful. It was a poor show when Delphinia Burrowes was permitted to pinch a perfectly respectable Hobbit’s arse and yet Bilbo didn’t dare even put his arm around his dear friend Thorin’s waist. 

“I miss the kisses, Thorin. I do. When we were very small, and married, and we used to kiss each other hello. That’s all.”

He took a pull from his mug and sighed, leaning back against the table and digging his toes luxuriously into the grass. It was pleasant to sit away from the noise, under the light of stars, in the cool of the evening air. More than anything, it was pleasant to sit beside Thorin, and speak honestly with him. Bilbo had missed that, too.

“I agree,” said Thorin, and Bilbo looked at him sharply, but there was no mockery on Thorin’s face. 

“I mean,” said Bilbo, waving an arm at the various couples surrounding them. Most of the older generation had long since retired to bed, and there was little chance of censure amongst the younger folk, especially on such a night. “It hardly seems fair.”

“Yes,” said Thorin quietly. 

They sat in silence so long it began to feel awkward. “Still,” said Bilbo. “That went well, with Grandfather, didn’t it.”

“Yes,” said Thorin again. 

“He’s drunk as a Lord, of course, but it’s something. I suppose it’s a shame we didn’t catch him a bit earlier, to be sure he wouldn’t forget. At least we know he likes the idea.”

“Yes,” said Thorin. He cleared his throat suddenly and set down his ale. “May I kiss you, then?” 

The question was so straightforward that Bilbo’s heart had began thundering in his chest before he had even realised why. There could be no harm in it, though. Surely Thorin only meant the sort of simple kisses they had shared as children. Bilbo nodded, tilting his head up and closing his eyes as Thorin began to lean down. He felt Thorin’s lips brush against his forehead for the briefest moment. 

Half disappointed and half relieved, he laughed. “My turn,” he said, and pecked Thorin’s cheek.

“Ah, you’re right,” said Thorin, with the hint of a smile. “On the cheek, wasn’t it.” 

He bent again to kiss Bilbo’s cheek, pressing a little harder this time, and for a little longer, until Bilbo was tingling with it. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember the friendly kisses of their childhood having been this nice before. If they had been, why on earth had he and Thorin stopped?

“My favourite was here,” said Bilbo, and turned to kiss the tip of Thorin’s handsome nose.

“Should I show you my favourite?” asked Thorin, a brief flash of something like wickedness crossing his expression, and Bilbo grinned, intrigued.

“Go on then,” he said. 

Thorin leaned to the side and Bilbo turned his head back towards the field obediently, wondering whether it would be his cheek again, or his shoulder, or eyebrow. Thorin’s mouth landed gently upon the tip of Bilbo’s ear, and Bilbo bit back a strangled whimper, his eyes wide, and gripped tightly onto the bench.

The kiss was warm, dry, slightly scratchy with the bristles of Thorin’s moustache, and every scrap of sensation shot directly downwards through Bilbo’s body to his lap. Thorin was kissing his ear, in public, in front of half Hobbiton, no matter that it was past nightfall and they were well past the reach of the lanterns. It felt as if Thorin had reached directly down his britches to caress him.

“You rotten liar,” said Bilbo breathlessly. “You’ve never kissed me there. Pretty sure I would’ve remembered that.”

Thorin sat back, clearing his throat again and looking abashed to have been caught out, though the corners of his mouth twitched.

 _Third Time Pays For All_ was one of Bilbo’s father’s sayings, and it rose in Bilbo’s mind at that moment. Before he could risk thinking better of it, he announced “My turn again,” and pressed his lips to Thorin’s, slipping an arm around Thorin’s neck to hold him in place.

He half-expected to be pushed away, and it was almost alarming when instead large, warm hands landed on Bilbo’s waist. The angle was awkward, sitting side by side, though Bilbo tilted his head to arrange their noses more neatly. As close as this, Thorin smelled faintly of ale, and the sugar still caught in his moustache from eating pastries. 

They kissed, pressing mouths together hard, and yet it wasn’t enough. A faint noise of frustration escaped Bilbo without his intending it to, but as he opened his mouth to explain himself, Thorin was leaning forward again, so that the tip of Bilbo’s tongue reached Thorin’s lips wholly by accident.

As soon as it had, Thorin jerked backwards, lifting a hand his mouth as if to check what had just happened. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Bilbo at once, horrified. He felt equally shocked himself, though a great deal less repulsed than he would have imagined. He licked his lips, tasting the crumbs of sugar from Thorin’s skin, and wished he could try that again. 

“Is this how Hobbits kiss?” asked Thorin, looking at him most intently, though in the dark his expression was hard to read. “With all of their mouth?

“For some kisses, I think?” stammered Bilbo, too dazed to do other than simply answer the question.

“Show me again,” said Thorin. 

Bilbo wanted to protest, to explain that he hadn’t the least idea how to do it himself, had never even thought of it until now. It would be a terrible thing to get wrong, presumably, and he gulped, staring blindly for a moment out towards the field, where the dancing had all but ceased, and instead the Hobbits dotted about the field were squashed together in pairs (or sometimes more) that demanded no interruption. 

That would be a start, perhaps. Bilbo took a deep breath and stood, turning to face Thorin properly. “May I sit in your lap, then? It might help?”

Thorin’s eyes widened, and he nodded an eager yes, holding out his arms and gazing at Bilbo with a sort of wonderment as Bilbo arranged himself, his knees to each side of Thorin’s thighs on the bench. Thorin made a very comfortable seat with all his fluff, and Bilbo stifled a giggle at the memory of when they had first met and he had thought Thorin was merely sitting on a cushion. He wrapped his arms about Thorin’s neck, daring first to reach up and stroke the velvet of his ears. He wasn’t sure how to begin.

Then Thorin bent forward, pressing his mouth tentatively against Bilbo’s, and ran the tip of his tongue against Bilbo’s lower lip. 

Bilbo opened his mouth into the kiss, suddenly elated at how easy and natural this was. Thorin’s mouth was warm, and the slip of his tongue against Bilbo’s was such heated intimacy it felt like drowning in sensation, like the most intoxicating ale imaginable. He dug his hands into Thorin’s glorious hair, turning his head further to the side so he could press closer to that warm, wide chest, and felt the spread of Thorin’s broad hands splaying across his back through the thin silk and linen of his clothes. Bilbo wanted more of this. He wanted to never stop. 

At exactly which moment, Thorin pulled away. As Bilbo’s eyes fluttered open, intending to protest, he felt the soft pressure of Thorin’s mouth now being applied to his jawline, licking and sucking across his skin and down his neck. It wasn’t a part of his body that Bilbo had ever thought of as being sensitive, but Thorin’s tongue was joyously disabusing him of that notion. He felt amazed and aroused in equal measure, licked and nibbled and tasted as thoroughly as any dessert, and then Thorin moved upwards, licking at the lobe of Bilbo’s ear, and at that he couldn’t help but moan, squirming helplessly in Thorin’s lap.

He heard Thorin huff with amusement, and retaliated with a gentle tug on his hair that replaced it with a deliciously hungry groan. Feeling bold, Bilbo tucked his head in against Thorin’s shoulder to reciprocate. There was a smell to Thorin’s skin, an earthy tang of sweat and something else delicious and rich, and he wanted to taste it if he could, licking at the bare skin of Thorin's neck where his beard began. Bilbo curled his body just far enough back to run his hands at last along Thorin’s collarbones and down over his chest, exactly as he had longed to do earlier that day. He did not miss the soft gasp as his fingertips ran past Thorin’s pebbled nipples, and though it was wonderful, it also seemed a long way from the chaste kisses where they had begun.

He sat back. “We should stop,” panted Bilbo, aware that things were rapidly heating up faster than he knew quite what to do with. 

“We should?” asked Thorin. 

“For now, not forever,” Bilbo promised. “We are in public, after all.”

Thorin nodded at that, though his ears drooped so sadly Bilbo had to laugh. He rested his forehead against Thorin’s, grinning like a fool, more full of joy than he had ever dreamt. Thorin murmured something in his own language, and Bilbo sighed happily at the sound of it.

“I didn’t know,” he admitted. It seemed ridiculous now, but it was true. How long had he wanted this, and been afraid it was impossible?

“How could you not?” asked Thorin, almost plaintively. He reached up to cup Bilbo’s jaw in one hand, and kissed him, slowly and softly at first. It did not stay slow nor soft for long, and Bilbo had to detach himself once more, with no little reluctance.

He moved to climb back out of Thorin’s lap and found himself held there still, not painfully but firmly, the grip of the Satyr’s wide hands upon his hips inescapable.

Thorin mumbled something Bilbo couldn’t quite make out. On closer inspection, he seemed to have gone extremely red, blushing from the roots of his hair to half-way down his broad, furred chest. It suited him, though that seemed hardly relevant.

Looking further down, however, the cause of Thorin’s distress was clear. Bilbo, of course, had britches to conceal his growing interest but Thorin had no such disguise. Something bare and startling and rather pink was poking out a little from the fur between his legs, and it was so astonishing a sight that Bilbo could scarcely keep from reaching down to touch. 

“I am sorry,” said Thorin, sounding strained. “Just a moment.”

Thorin’s eyes were closed and his brow furrowed, so there was no harm in Bilbo looking, at least. Pressed up against him, Bilbo realised, it had felt very much as his own might, and now he could see the thing, it appeared they truly were not much different after all. Thorin’s emerged from a sort of furred sheath, which explained how it was so invisible most of the time. Bilbo wondered how far it might poke out, and whether it liked to be stroked as his did, before deciding that was a line of thought for another time.

He took Thorin’s face in his hands and kissed the end of his nose again to get his attention. “You know, since you’ve been away, Father’s been teaching me the accounts - how to manage the rental for Bagshot Row and all his other properties. It’s dreadfully dull. Would it help if I told you all about it?”

“You might recite me the Sagas of the Valar and I would desire you no less,” grumbled Thorin, meeting his eyes once more.

“Oh, I doubt that. It really is very tedious stuff. I say, is that my Mother coming over here?”

Thorin flinched under Bilbo’s hands, and a swift glance downwards confirmed that he was largely fit for public view once more. Rolling back off onto the bench beside Thorin, Bilbo covered his face with a hand, laughing fit to burst as Thorin peered anxiously over his shoulder.

“She is not… I do not see her,” said Thorin.

“No, well, she’s probably at home in bed by now,” agreed Bilbo. “It worked though, didn’t it?”

After a moment Thorin chuckled, something Bilbo had not heard in far too long. Indeed he had never heard it before, since now that Thorin’s voice was so deep his laughter rumbled low in his chest, warm and merry. It was all Bilbo could do not to climb straight back into his lap.

“It’s past midnight. I should get back, too,” he said, a trifle sadly. “You could walk me home, if you like.”

“Not yet,” said Thorin at once, reaching for his hand, engulfing it almost entirely in his own broad one. A brief shadow of confusion crossed his face. “Besides, I am not sure of the way, from here.”

“Oh, good heavens,” sniggered Bilbo. “You must’ve been to Bag End dozens of times by now!”

“From Bindbale it is easier,” said Thorin, his cheeks flushing again with prickled pride.

“Well yes, from Bindbale you just follow the Water downstream until you can see the Hill.” 

Bilbo sat up with a jerk and Thorin blinked at him in confusion.

“That’s… Bag End is on The Hill. I hadn’t realised,” said Bilbo, thinking aloud. “Your portents. The Water. You went upstream. But if you’d gone downstream, and actually followed the flow of The Water… it would have brought you to The Hill. To my house.”

“Follow the Water to the Hill,” breathed Thorin.

“Thorin, wait,” said Bilbo, suddenly electrified with the realisation. “My grandfather, the Thain, do you know what they call him? The Old Took. It’s true! The Old Took. What if he’s the Old One from your portents? If we take his advice you really might get to stay in Bindbale forever. The end of your Journey. Well. My goodness.”

They stared at one another, Bilbo in delight, Thorin slack-jawed with astonishment. 

“I must tell Amad,” said Thorin hoarsely. “I must go.”

“I think you ought,” said Bilbo, delightedly. “Come on!”

They ran together down to the road, though Thorin’s canter was not easy to keep up with. At the bottom of Bagshot Row they kissed goodnight once more, and Bilbo waved until Thorin had gone around the corner out of sight.

He let himself back into Bag End quietly enough not to wake anyone, sneaking silently down to his room. Still dressed, he collapsed back onto his bed, his feet unwashed and his head spinning with giddy joy, and raised a hand to touch his mouth, his ears, the tingling places on his throat where Thorin had licked and kissed him. 

It was real, and true, and not a dream: Bilbo loved Thorin, and Thorin loved him, and he was back, and this time he would stay.


End file.
